
O R Vi 



^LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. # 



? [SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT.] f 

$ — '^H^ $ 

^UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.! 



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V v 



NEW THEORY 



OF THE 



CREATION AND DELUGE. 



<l Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land ? 
All fear, none aid you, and few understand." 



FRONTISPIECE. 






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LUMINOUS 



RING 




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Antediluvian Yaporic Ring,- 



V 



THE CREATION & DELUGE, 



^a orbing to a 18m ©heorg; 



CONFIRMING THE BIBLE ACCOUNT, REMOVING MOST OF THE 

DIFFICULTIES HERETOFORE SUGGESTED BY 

SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHERS, 

AND 

Indicating Future Cosmological Changes down to the 
Final Consummation and End of Earth* 



X.. 



"All Nature is but Art unknown to thee; 
All Chance, Direction which thou canst not see; 
All Discord, Harmony not understood; 
All partial Evil, universal Good." — Estay on Man. 



4* 



r 



PHILADELPHIA: 

Printed for the Author by II. Orr, No. 100 Chestnut Street, 



1854 







Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1854, bjH. Okb, 
m the Clerk's office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Penn- 
sylvania. 



- ■ 



i 



ARGUMENT, 



The Creation was the result of natural law — there was a physi- 
cal and moral necessity for the Deluge ; both of which phenomena 
must have taken place about the time and in the way and manner 
described by Moses. 

Neither tha Creation nor the Deluge was " a miracle," or a devia- 
tion from the known laws of Nature, nor was either of them an event 
contrary to the established constitution and course of things. Each 
happened in its proper time and place. This doctrine does not dero- 
gate from the attributes of the Creator ; on the contrary, it exalts 
our ideas of His omnipotence and beneficence. Neither does it lead 
to Materialism, Fatalism, or Atheism, on the one hand, nor to 
" Spiritualism," Scepticism, or Pantheism on the other. 

The habitable portion of the Antediluvian world is yet under 
water. A great change is about to take place on this Earth. The 
type of animal life is progressing; a new race of animals, as much 
superior to man as man is to a monkey, will hereafter appear ; else 
we have reached the culminating point and retrogression or destruc- 
tion must follow. Important Sidereal changes are approaching. 
The Sun is to decrease in size, until it will appear no larger than a 
star of the first magnitude ! 

The Earth was formerly surrounded by a luminous ring, lik* 
Saturn : — what formed and what became of that ring. — A Delug» 
will occur upon that planet, similar to the one which overwhelmed 
the Earth in the days of the patriarch Noah. " There was light" 
before the Sun, Moon, or Stars were visible on Earth. The whole- 
number of persons destroyed by the flood did not exceed those who 
die in the city of New York in a single year. The account of the 



8 

Creation, transmitted from Adam to Jacob by two men, one of whom 
received it from Adam, the other communicated it to Jacob, The 
history of the Deluge given to Jacob and through him to Moses, by 
an eye witness of that catastrophe. There was one and only one gene- 
ral Deluge. The Ark was large enough to hold all the animals al- 
luded to in the Biblical account, with all necessary provender. — A 
universal Lent. — There have been Creations and Destructions of 
Planets, postdiluvian as well as antediluvian. 

The six days of Creation, and the years of the lives of the Pa- 
triarchs, have been of the same length as our present days and years, 
neither longer nor shorter. The reason of the antediluvian longevity 
and the postdiluvian brevity of human life explained. The End of 
Earth, and final sublunary consummation. 

This new theory accounts for many of the phenomena described 
in the Bible, heretofore not satisfactorily explained, removes most 
of the doubts suggested by unbelieving Philosophers and Sceptics, 
and is calculated to disabuse the public mind from the insinuations 
of mistaken, although it may be, well meaning investigators into 
the mysteries revealed to man by the inspiration of the Almighty, 
men of untiring industry and research, many of whom felt conscious 
of the integrity of their purpose, and were not to be silenced by a 
dogmatical assertion of " Divine Authenticity." 

Finally, without relying on inspiration (and without denying it,) 
the account contained in the Scriptures of Truth, is probable, ra- 
tional, and worthy of belief and acceptation. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



Whoever estimates the value of a book according 
to its size or cost of paper, printing and binding, with- 
out allowance for brain work, is requested to lay this 
down, and not attempt its perusal ; it was not written 
for such. But all who judge of the merits of a work 
by the number, magnitude or novelty of ideas ; who 
do not believe a silver dollar is as large as a cartwheel, 
and who are satisfied that a purchaser may sometimes 
receive the worth of his money, are earnestly invited 
to give the following pages a deliberate, candid exa- 
mination, and the author will cheerfully and respect- 
fully await their decision. 

Part of these essays were written forty years ago, 
and the others at different subsequent periods, which 
account for the desultory manner in which the subject 
is treated. Being intended for- the general reader, 
scientific terms have been omitted as far as practica- 
ble; and where that was not altogether convenient, 
explanations have been added which to. the learned 
may appear unnecessary; should any such honor this 
little book with a perusal, it is hoped they will accept 
this as a sufficient apology. 

This work does not pretend to prove, with mathe- 
matical precision, the truth of the Bible, 'out is only a 



10 

humble endeavor to rescue the Scriptures and 6cience 
from the false position of antagonism, in which some 
have attempted to place them ; and to show that the 
Mosaical account of the Creation and Deluge is rea- 
sonable and probable. Hence, we quote from the Bible, 
not to prove the truth of our assertion, or of the Bible 
itself, but to show the probability of the Mosaical ac- 
count — and that it is not inconsistent with itself, as 
some sceptics have asserted, but is a rational account, 
in accordance with the higher grades of modern phi- 
losophy, and worthy of belief and acceptance. 

Those portions which are new, being the only parts 
the paternity whereof the author acknowledges, are 
the only portions which he will undertake to defend ; 
and so far as they go, he fearlessly, but respectfully, 
throws do'wn the gauntlet, and stands ready to defend 
his offspring to the best of his ability ? against all at- 
tacks from whatever quarter they may come. 

The work is published anonymously, in order that 
it may be judged by its merits or demerits, and not by 
the opinion which the reader, whether friend or foe, 
mav entertain of the writer, 



P R E f A € i. 



Thirty-nine years ago, being in a large company, 
the author was asked, " Why Oaks sprang up when 
Pines were cut down ?" &c. Having assigned the 
cause for that and several other natural phenomena, 
in the way explained in the following pages, he 
was taken aside by a "minister of the gospel" and 
told, he was "in a very dangerous state of mind" — 
that the "doctrines" he had advanced were "atheisti- 
cal !" and the sooner he could, by confession and prayer 
purge his soul from that heresy, the better it would 
be for himself and for society! Being young, and not 
having a very exalted opinion of his own abilities, he 
refrained from publishing many of those views, con- 
tenting himself with occasionally explaining them 
whenever he met with an independent, thinking per- 
son, until in the }^ear 1844 he was invited to deliver 
a lecture before the Philadelphia Lyceum : — The sub- 
ject was, " the Past, the Present, and the Future : — or, 
America, as it was — as it is — and as it will be — wherein 
he incorporated most of the new views, contained in 
these Essays ; but as it was necessary to compress them 
into few words, in order not to encroach too much upon 
the subject of the lecture, he felt he had not done just- 



ice to the New Theory nor to himself; and there- 
fore, when requested to write for one of the Philadel- 
phia papers, he embraced the opportunity to spread 
before the public a portion of these opinions which, 
after many years of reflection, he is satisfied are neither 
"atheistical" nor "dangerous 9f They are now en- 
larged, and, with many other observations and reflec- 
tions, published in this form, in order that they may 
reach those who would never see them in the columns 
of a newspaper published in this section of the union. 
The ideas and expressions of other writers have 
been freely used whenever they suited the purpose, 
without stopping to name the author, or distinguish 
them in any way except by marks of quotation ; hav- 
ing generally repeated from memory, the author's 
name and especially the book and page, were often not 
recollected, and other engagements did not allow time 
to search for them: the well-informed reader can sup- 
ply the deficiency, and with this explanation, it is 
hoped will excuse the omission 



TO ALL WHO CAN THINK, 



AND 



DARE TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES, 



THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE RESPECTFULLY 



DEDICATED 



BY THE 



AUTHOR. 



NOTE. 

Having inculcated the doctrine that war, pestilence^ 
famine, sickness and many other evils, are the result 
of the ignorance, folly or wickedness of mankind, and 
not special acts of Divine Providence ; and having inti- 
mated that preparatory legislation is needed (in antici- 
pation of the great change which is approaching;) we 
had prepared an additional chapter, giving instances 
of the one, and containing an abstract of the other; 
together with such reasons and reflections concerning 
the same, as appeared to be necessary ; but, finding 
justice could not be done to the subject, to the reader 
or to the writer, within the limits proper for an adden- 
dum, and that it would partake more of the nature of 
a treatise upon political economy, than of a philoso- 
phical inquuw into the phenomena of the Creation and 
Deluge as applied to the cosmogeny of the Bible — the 
insertion has been reluctantly omitted. 

In speaking of internal attraction, and of the inte- 
rior and exterior surface of the crust of the Earth, we 
do not wish to be understood as asserting, that the 
earth is a hollow globe or oblate spheroid, or that any 
portion of the sea has no bottom ; we merely intended 
to sav that, if the law of attraction below the surface 
be as we have stated, then no danger would arise even 
if a part of the sea had no bottom. The wisest know 
of what the outer crust is mads, only to the depth of 
about ten miles, (and are not sure as to all of that ) 
We can speak with equal certainty of the state, con- 
dition, and some of the properties of the great mass 
below. But the limits of our work forbade further 
examination of that subject. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

Objections and answers, 

CHAPTER II. 

No mountains before the Flood — -Luminous ring around the Earth — Thar 
"windows of Heaven — Cause of the sudden change of climate at the Poles 
from tropical to frigid— Light prior to that of tbe Sun — No antediluvian re- 
mains of man, nor of the works of man — The place where Noah built th« 
Ark — What went with the waters of the flood — Saturn is to be overflowed ! 

CHAPTER W. 

Subsiding of the Ocean — American Deluge — Other floods — A dilemma — 
Physical and moral necessity for the Deluge— A great change is about to 
take place on this Earth — Preparatory legislation needed — The type of ani- 
mal life progressing — .The inferior animals will be exterminated by man — A 
new race of animals, superior to man, may hereafter appear. 

CHAPTER IV. 

There must have been a Creator, and that was God! — How things stood 
before the world was 1 — Formation of the Earth and other planets, according 
to a general law — attraction — gravitation — repulsion — The sun diminishing 
in size, will become extinct! — A more perfect day — Celestial pathway: — 
Where the first tree came from — " The law of Nature," (enacted by the Crea- 
tor,) is, " the law of God!" 

CHAPTER V. 

The Antediluvian World is now covered by the Mediterranean Sea — Bibli- 
cal chronology tested by known data — How Moses became informed of the 
Creation and Deluge — Those who had ships could not thereby save them- 
selves — Several of the Antediluvians lived until the time of Abraham. 

CHAPTER VI. 
Man not carnivorous before the flood — Capacity of the Ark — Earth en- 
riched by the Deluge—A grand Lent — Destruction of fishes— The reason why 
the carnivorous did not eat up the graminivorous animals on leaving the ark 
— Abstract of the Mosaical account — The tact and talent of the celebrated 
navigator Noah, during his voyage upon a shoreless ocean, in the large 

sel that ever floated. 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Creation was the result of natural law, or "law of Natui 
tameous production — Formation of coal — Birds originally came 
sea — Modern instances — Quails or snails in the wildernecs — New 
What caused the difference between animal and vegetable life — Rest, Ces- 



16 

8&ti©n (from consummation, not fatigue,) — New woilds formed, "old ones d«* 
stroyed, 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Organic law created and sustained by Deity — Exalts our ideas of His 
power and goodness — Diiference between the inventions of man and the 
creations of G-od — Perpetual motion— A great change in the heavens is ap- 
proaching! — Final destruction of the world — The antediluvians were of infe- 
-xior organization — Longevity before the fiood-rMosaical account is true — In- 
ternal evidence — The history of Creation, written by Adam or some one of 
those to whom he dictated it, and that of the Deluge by Noah, Shem, Ham or 
Japheth ; not by Moses 1 — Recapitulation. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Description of drawings and diagrams, with explanatory remarks — Cause 
*nd exemplification of annular motion — Condition of the Earth on the 
morning of the second day of the Creation, after the separation of the 
waters — Production of light and heat by compression of air-— The Earth 
with its illuminated ring as it appeared prior to the Deluge — How a planet 
was ejected from the sun (according to some theorists) — Concluding obser- 
Tations — The Ejid of Earth — Final destruction of the present system of 
things — " New Heavens and a new Earth." 



LIST OF PLATES. 

FRONTISPIECE. 

Showing, the appearance of the Antediluvian World, surrounded by a 
luminous ring, as seen from one of the other Planets, prior to the Deluge ! 

PLATE II. 

The condition of the Earth on the s,econd day of Creation, immediately 

after the separation of the waters. Apparatus for producing light and heat 

by the compression of air. 

PLATE III. 

Stellar and solar attraction — The cause of the annular rotation of tht 

Earth. 

PLATE IV. 

Attraction and Repulsion— How a planet (according to some theorists,) 
was ejected from the sun. 



ERRATA. 

Page 75, for sixty-one,. , read fiftysix. 

I 11 *76 in the 16th line from the top, for 56, read 54. 

" I9th line from the top, for 54, read 56. 

" 2d line from the bottom, for 53, .read 77. 

*• 11 1st line from the bottom, for 204, read 228, 



The Creation and Deluge. 



CHAPTER I, 

Whoever attempts to introduce anything ?iew, in 
Science, Morality, Political Economy, Philosophy or 
Philanthropy, must expect to meet with doubts and 
misapprehensions : nevertheless, reasonable persons 
will not condemn, until they have first given an atten- 
tive hearing. The time has passed when novelty was, 
of itself, sufficient to insure rejection or derision. 

Philosophers, Sceptics and Atheists, occasionally 
have endeavored to discredit the Scriptural account of 
the Creation and Flood, by suggestions of the follow- 
ing character : 

No rain which we can conceive of, could in forty 
days cover the earth with water five miles deep, which 
it would have to do, if " all the mountains were co- 
vered." 

Where could so much water come from ? — If all 
the vapor in the atmosphere were suddenly con- 
densed into water, it would not amount to one foot in 
depth ! 

Waiving these objections, and supposing the earth 
to have been so covered, what became of that vast 
c 



18 

amount of water ! (of the extra rive miles above the 
level of the ocean.) 

If the water prevailed over the earth for ten months 
and twelve days, all terrene life (vegetable as well as 
animal,) must have been destroyed, and "every living 
thing and all cattle," that were in the Ark, when re- 
leased, if not before, would have perished with 
hunger ! 

How could a vessel of the size of the Ark, contain 
eight persons, and single or septenary duplicates of all 
other animals, with sufficient sustenance or provender 
for twelve months ? 

We find no antediluvian remains of man, nor of the 
works of man ! Consequently there is no evidence 
that such persons ever existed. 

If a knowledge of the Creation or of the Delude 
were necessary or useful to man, why should that in- 
formation have been withheld until " revealed" to 
Moses ? 

How could there be "light" before the sun, moon, 
or stars were created ? 

Can it be possible, that a beneficent Creator would 
make millions of human beings, and then destroy them 
by a premature, sudden and violent death? 

The Creator being a just God, and no respecter of 
persons or ol creatures, w T hy should one class, namely, 
marine animals, be exempted from the general destruc- 
tion ? — For, nobody pretends thai fishes were drowned 
in the flood. 

How could all the vegetables and animals have been 



created in <?r day::' The latter would have starred 
whilst the former were arriving- at maturity ! On the 
- it must have required at least i4 six thousand 
; : a r . 

It is perfectly ahsurd to talk of human beings hav- 
ing lived from 500 to nearly 1000 yea; 

There have been r Floods upon this earth, but 

no " general Deb; i e . " N a h 8 fiood was a very small 
affair, probably only an overflow of some river. 

If the Deluge to be considered as "a mira 
all reasoning is unnecessary, for it is just as easy 
believe a miracle as a //one: whenever we 

have to leave natural laws, and resort to the supposi- 
tion of 3 Jay of miraculous po wex - ?ulations are 
, we inur. go it blind ; r ' but if it be true, that 

{i The first Abnightx ca~ e 
Acts not by partial but by general la 

then we are net bound to believe iptions of phy- 

al phenomena, which are cor to natural law. 

and common sense. 
The Bible ac Lb either true or it is c If 

the first chapter be not true, it invalidates the 
five books."" (all said to be written by the same hand.) 
;ot to be believed, how can we helieve the 
If the Biblical account of the destruction 
of the world by the Deluge, be true, it would look - 
if there had been a at the Crealion, and tl 

fore, the maker had to blot it out and be^in anew. 

anil other similar e - n <•] 



20 

against the Scriptural account, by men who professed 
to be seeking after truth— men of untiring industry 
and research, many of whom felt conscious of the in- 
tegrity of their purpose, and were not to be deterred 
from investigation, by a dogmatical assertion of " Di- 
vine authenticity." 

It is important to ascertain, if possible, the truth 
or fallacy of the Mosaical account, for if we can 
show that it is probably true, and in harmony with 
the laws of nature, then may we more readily yield 
our assent to those portions which, in the present state 
of human knowledge, cannot as yet be tested by man. 

Therefore, laying aside all prejudice against the sa- 
cred volume, or bigotry in its favor, let us calmly, 
seriously, and earnestly endeavor to investigate the 
facts therein narrated. 

We are about to consider what is called the new 
theory of the Creation and Deluge ; but it is not all 
new: part has long been known, yet, it is necessary 
to introduce that which is known in order to explain 
that which is unknown ; for 

" What can we reason, but from what we know ?" 

This new theory, accounts for many of the pheno- 
mena described in the Bible, not heretofore satisfacto- 
rily explained; it removes most of the doubts suggested 
by unbelieving Philosophers and Sceptics : it is calcu- 
lated to disabuse the public mind, from the insinua- 
tions of mistaken, although it may be ; well meaning, 
investigators into the mysteries revealed to man by 



, 21 

the inspiration of the Almighty ; and, without affirm- 
ing, and without denying his divine authority, it 
shows, that the account given by Moses is rational 
and probable — the usual objections thereto arising from 
a misapprehension of the text. 

The Creation was the result of natural laws, and 
there was a moral and physical necessity for the "Deluge. 

The Flood was not caused by rain alone. 

The earth, like Saturn, was formerly surrounded by 
a luminous ring, (we shall endeavor to ascertain what 
formed, and what became of that ring.) 

" There was light," before the light of the sun, 
moon, or stars, reached this earth ! 

The habitable portion of the Antediluvian world is 
now under water ! 

Probably not more than ten or fifteen thousand per- 
sons were destroyed by the Flood! Being about the 
number of deaths in the city of New York in a single 
year. 

The history of Creation could have been, and most 
likely was, transmitted from Adam to Jacob by two 
men! one of whom received it from Adam, and the 
other communicated it to Jacob, who through Joseph, 
made it known to the Elders of Israel, and the Magi 
of Egypt, from whom Moses might have received it. 

Other historical facts have been handed down 
through much more equivocal testimony, and admitted 
as true, by all classes of men. 

In the absence of writing, and of printing, the his- 
tory of the Creation and Deluge might have been in- 



22 

terpolated, forgotten, or entirely lost, had it not been 
for a wonderful triplication of the means of preserva- 
tion ; for in that case, we should have had to depend 
upon inspiration, corroborated only by geology, where- 
as now, we have the probability, almost amounting to 
certainty, of its having been transmitted orally also : 
therein we see the wisdom and design of the Creator 
in giving a long term of lift to the original inhabit- 
ants; which object being accomplished, it was evi- 
dence of benevolence and forecast, to shorten the aver- 
age period of human existence, whereby many more 
sentient beings could enjoy life, than if the original term 
had been continued. Independent of intuition or inspir- 
ation, the earlier antediluvians could onlv have acquired 
knowledge by actual observation and experiment; and 
not having the art of printing, many things would 
have been lost to succeeding ages, had the term of 
life been no longer than it is at present. 

It has been observed, that when there are two or 
more ways to accomplish an end, the Almighty always 
selects the best, and generally, if not universally, 
the most simple; — had the present term of human 
life been originally adopted, the account of the Crea- 
tion must have passed through many, instead of only 
one person from Adam to Noah. 

The account of the Deluge was probably given to 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by those who had been 
eye witnesses of that catastrophe. It will be shown 
that two of the passengers in the ark, lived to the time 
of Abraham, and one of these until the time of Jacob 



53 

and, as the Deluge was the most remarkable event ha 
their lives, no doubt, in their old age, they related the 
story to sueh as were then living ; for it is the nature 
of old men, to become retrospective and communicative 
upon the occurrences of their early days. This does 
not contradict, if it does not confirm the Christian and 
Hebrew belief, that the Pentateuch was written by in- 
spiration. y 

The six days of Creation, and the years of the lives of 
the patriarchs, will be shown to have been of the same 
length as our present days and years, and no longer ! 

In order to establish the foregoing positions, we will 
test the Biblical Chronology by known data. 

The antediluvian animals consisted of only a few 
classes, orders, families, genera and species ; so that 
the ark was quite large enough. Natural history and 
geology confirm this, and so far as they have a bearing 
thereon, they confirm other parts of this theory. 

To deny there having been one general Deluge, is 
about as rational as to deny the Creation ; for there is 
nearly as much evidence of the one as of the other. 
Certainly there is far more evidence of a general de- 
luge, than of " a number of small floods ;" and yet 
we do not deny that there may have been many par- 
tial inundations, and we can account for some of them. 

The difficulties to which we have alluded, arise in 
part, from a misapprehension of the text. For in- 
stance, the Bible does not say the water w T as five miles 
deep ; that is a mistake of modern Philosophers, as 
will be shown in our next chapter. . 



24 



CHAPTER II. 

"Some hold the heavens, like a top, 
Are kept by circulation up, 
And wer't not for their wheeling 'round, 
They'd instantly fall to the ground." 



Mountains exist at present about five miles high ; 
but we have no evidence that there were such, 
before the Flood. Moses says; " fifteen cubits up- 
ward did the waters prevail : and the mountains were 
covered." The Jewish cubit was not quite twenty- 
two inches; so that the flood spoken of in holy writ, 
was only about twenty-eight feet in depth — not " five 
miles." Learned men generally admit, that " in the 
beginning," the earth was in a heated, gaseous, fluid, 
or incandescent state, and that, as it cooled, it har- 
dened into rocks, the disintegration of which formed 
what is called ground, the surplus water becoming se- 
parated, and remaining in a fluid, vaporic or steam- 
like state. It is evident, from the well-known laws 
of motion operating upon a body in such a state, that 
the superficial land in the first instance, was nearly 
level, forming vast morasses or marshes, with occa- 
sional pieces of meadow or upland. The fauna and 
flora of the antediluvian world, as we novv find them 
embedded in the rocks, corroborate this idea : the 
great Saurian animals (resembling enormous lizards 
or crocodiles)— the shells, the plants, all evince a low 



25 

marshy, ,or swampy soil, a warm climate, and abun- 
dance of shallow water : for example ; cryptogamous 
plants, having their fruit concealed and flowerless, 
such as mushrooms, ferns, mosses and sea-weeds ; — ■ 
monocotyledonous plants, whose seeds have but one 
lobe, as palms, rushes, lilies, grasses, &c. ; — lycopo- 
diums, (ground pine,) such as are used in the decora- 
tion of churches at Christmas, &c. 

There were then no elevations such as we now call 
mountains. The term mountain was a diminutive, and 
did not originally express the idea which it now does ; 
hence, Moses uses the expression, " all the high hills, 
that were under the whole heaven, and the mountains, 
were covered." This, taken in connexion with the 
small depth of water required to cover them, leads to 
the inference, that the high hills were not mountains, 
and that the mountains were not high hills : for, if his 
testimony is to be taken, neither the high hills nor the 
mountains were more than twenty-eight feet in height. 

We have proved that Moses did not say that the wa- 
ters were "five miles deep/' but, on the contrary, 
that they were only twenty-eight feet deep; and con- 
sequently, he did not attempt to exaggerate the catas- 
trophe. We will nevertheless admit, that even that 
depth was far more than could be obtained from the 
atmosphere, supposing it to have rained violently for 
forty successive days and nights over all the world at 
the same time; which, without extraneous aid, is im- 
possible ! The first foot of water would exhaust the 
moisture from the atmosphere, and unless there were 

n 



26 

some other source than evaporation, it could never in- 
crease beyond that depth. But there was another 
source : as we read in Genesis I. 6 to 10, inclusive — 

"And God said, let there be a firmament- in the 
midst of the waters : and let it divide the waters from 
the waters. 

" And God made the firmament, and divided the 
waters which were under the firmament from the 
waters which were above the firmament : and it 
was so. 

" And God called the firmament, Heaven : and the 
evening and the morning were the second day. 

" And God said, let the waters under the heaven be 
gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land 
appear : and it was so. 

" And God called the dry land earth; and the ga- 
thering together of the waters called he seas : and 
God saw that it was good." 

There are no waters now either in, or above this 
firmament; for, by our telescopes, we can penetrate 
far, very far, beyond that heaven, and see other hea- 
vens, with other suns and worlds innumerable ; but 
no water intervenes : therefore, that water is not there 
now ; that it was there once, is highly probable ; for, 
(independent of the assertion of Moses, that prior to 
the creation of man " the Lord had not caused it to 
rain upon the earth, but there went up a mist fro??i 
the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground,") 
by the laws of dynamics as applied to spouting fluids, 



27 

the centrifugal force and the great velocity of the 
earth's motion, whilst the materials of which it was 
composed were excessively heated, the steam might 
have been driven off until its levity corresponded with 
that of the higher altitudes, and there, equipoised and 
retarded from further progression by the centripetal 
force or law of gravitation, have revolved around the 
earth in a ring, like those of Saturn. Then, as the 
point of perpetual congelation descended, it would 
have become a narrow band or ring of ice or snow, en- 
circling the whole earth, at a high elevation ; reflect- 
ing the light of the sun or emitting its own light, (as 
hereinafter explained,) and appearing at a distance to 
be highly luminous. 

[Whilst this work was passing through the press, 
the proof sheets were submitted to a learned friend for 
inspection and criticism, who suggests that, meeting a 
colder atmosphere, the steam must have been con- 
densed into rain and fallen to the earth, and therefore 
could not have formed such a ring. 

That this would be the case at present, is probable; 
but we must recollect, that the circumstances at and 
before the Creation, were very different from what 
they are now. 

According to the modern theory of the origin of the 
Earth, the space between this planet and Mars had 
then lately ceased from being a portion of the Sun it- 
self; and that luminary, after the earth was former], 
being as large as the orbit of Venus, and consequently 
nearer the earth than it is now, the temperature here 



28 

must have been, even after consolidation, at least as 
great as that of Mercury, which is seven times that of 
the Earth ; and therefore, the surrounding space was 
then at too elevated a temperature to produce the con- 
densation of steam by cold, even at the great altitude 
to which we have supposed the steam to have arisen.} 

Ci In the beginning," when what now constitutes 
the solid parts of the Globe, were at a red, or perhaps 
a white heat, the freezing point must have been at a 
vast distance from the Earth. What is now water 
being then steam, rising to a great altitude and form- 
ing the aforesaid ring, would tend, together with the 
cooling of the surface of the globe, to lower the point 
of perpetual congelation, until it would gradually de- 
scend to, and freeze the whole of that vaporic ring; a 
condensation, or agglomeration, or both, would then 
take place in the particles forming that ring ; thus in- 
creasing the density and gravity of these conglome- 
rates, and causing them to commence their downward 
course, as in the case of snow and rain ; which down- 
ward tendency would be somewhat accelerated by 
the uprising of the mountains to the height of nearly 
five miles. 

It would have required man}^ centuries so to reduce 
the temperature, as that the point of congelation 
should descend to, and embrace this vaporic ring — 
and, even then, the condensation and consequent de- 
scent would be slow at first, but at last extremely 
rapid. 

This vast body of water, snow, or ice 7 surrounding 



29 

the earth in the equatorial region, operated like a 
cloud, sheet or covering, and prevented the radiation 
of heat from the earth's surface ; thus, in part, ac- 
counting for the equalization of the tropical climate, 
which existed nearly all over the globe prior to the 
general deluge ; or it might have produced this effect 
by refracting or bending the sun's rays, causing them 
to fall more perpendicularly on what are now the tem- 
perate and frigid zones ; or both these modes of action 
may have occurred harmoniously at the same time. 

The level surface of the globe, (which at that time 
was without mountainous ranges of highly elevated 
land, without rain or clouds.) the absence of great 
oceans to temper the atmosphere, and the heated and 
comparatively thin crust of the earth prior to the De- 
luge, will also aid us in accounting for the ardent cli- 
mate, which then belonged to what are now called the 
temperate, and a portion of the frigid zones. 

Opposite electrical conditions coming together, pro- 
duce light; (the aurora borealis is supposed to be 
caused in that way;) consequently, this ring might 
have emitted light from one side, whilst it reflected 
the rays of the sun from the other. 

A time arrived, when this watery ring yielded to 
the attraction of gravitation, and descended to the 
earth; and to this, Moses alluded when he said, "the 
windows of heaven were opened ;" and this was the 
'• flood of waters" which God told Noah he would 
" bring 1 '' upon the earth. 

Here then was a cataract as much superior to Nia- 



w 

gara, as Niagara is to the smallest mill dam ! This tre- 
mendous water-fall continued for five months ! — Ima- 
gine the waters of the St. Lawrence, Hudson, Dela- 
ware, Susquehanna, Mississippi and Amazon to be 
united and constantly falling to the earth, from a 
height of many miles, for five consecutive months, 
accompanied all that time by rain, (caused by this vio- 
lent commotion,) which rain, for the first forty days 
and nights,, poured down in torrents; and the bot- 
tom of the sea continually exploding with a noise, 
compared to which, all the artillery of man added to 
the loudest thunder, would be but as a whisper ; whilst 
mountains and mountain ranges, came peering up 
from the interior portions of the globe,— and you may 
form some conception of the descent of that vast 
volume of water, and the terrible uprising and down 
sinking of different portions of the crust of the earth, 
— or, of what is to be understood when we speak of the 
Deluge ! 

We have not gauged those rivers,, nor measured the 
cubical content of the ocean ; therefore, the above 
comparison may not be in strict proportion as to the 
respective quantities of water. This is not necessary, 
- — our present object being to give some idea of the 
immensity of the catastrophe, and not an exact admea- 
surement of the agents employed on that occasion. 

There are those, who think " Noah should have 
looked out from the Ark now and then, to observe 
what was going on around him, so as to be able to 
transmit the account to us; instead of shutting him 



31 

self up, month after month, without so much as open- 
ing a window !" 

Under the circumstances, we think it was proper to 
shut down the dead lights, (if there were any,) and to 
do precisely what Noah did. — No doubt he and his 
family were terrified into simple and implicit obedience 
to all that he and they were commanded to do. — " Re- 
member Lot's wife!" Inquisitiveness, which induces us 
to pry into other people's affairs, sometimes leads into 
trouble ; how much more then, when we attempt to 
scrutinize (except to vindicate or explain,) " the ways 
of God to man." 

The Americans are a bold, investigating people; 
but we know of none of them who would venture un- 
bidden to pry into and record, for the gratification of 
an incredulous or gainsaying posterity, the doings of 
the Almighty, amid 

" The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." 

Many other animals have physical courage, as great 
or even greater than that of man, yet the most fero- 
cious beasts will quail, when surrounded by pheno- 
mena such as we have described ; and this may in 
part account for their docility on board the ark. 
— Again, as Noah and his family had to feed and 
fodder this vast number of flesh, grass, and grain- 
eating animals, every farmer's boy can understand 
they must have had plenty to do, without spending 
their time in looking out of the door or the window 
of the ark ; therefore, let no one censure Noah or his 



32 

companions for "not having the curiosity" and temerity 
" to look out and see what the Lord was doing." 
Grateful for their own deliverance, where they 
could not unriddle, they 'had learned to trust! Be- 
sides ; it would have been a painful sight to behold 
their friends and neighbors, some of whom were their 
near relatives, struggling against their doom, and ap- 
pealing to them by name, and by every endearing con- 
sideration, calculated to move the human heart, to 
assist them in their great extremity ; — none but a de- 
mon would wish to look upon such a scene ! Then, 
there were their own property and possessions, their 
dwellings, lands, fields, vineyards, servants, (some of 
them " to the manor born;") their flocks and herds, 
and all their substance (except what they had with 
them, which, probably, was comparatively little,) 
sinking below the world of waters, to be lost to them 
for ever, whilst they were embarking on an intermina- 
ble ocean p in a non-descript vessel, without sail, oar, 
compass, chart, rudder, cable or anchor, not knowing 
that they would ever find another home or country ! 

A thousand heart-rending scenes must have been 
presented, had Noah or any of his family been per- 
mitted to look out of the ark, upon the devastation 
and destruction then going on around them : There- 
fore, it was in mercy that " the Lord shut him in /" 

How irrational and cruel must it have appeared, to 
those who were connected with Noah by blood, mar- 
riage, business or friendship, to see him " saving all 
manner of unclean beasts and creeping things," 



33 

Whilst he was "leaving his relatives and friends to 
perish !" many of whom could have been accommo- 
dated on board the ark, " if some of those vile beasts 
were thrown overboard." So that it was in wisdom 
as well as mercy, that he was " shut in" and not al- 
lowed to look upon or hold any communication with, 
a drowning world ! 

Moses speaks of rain, as well as of the water that 
was poured down from " the windows of heaven," 
and therefore, he could not have meant that they 
were one and the same thing — he evidently makes a 
discrimination, and considers them as two separate 
and distinct sources from which the water was sap- 
plied that deluged the earth. 

Rain, in the present state of tranquillity, does not 
add to the quantity of water on the earth, because it 
is first taken up into the atmosphere, before it can de- 
scend again ; thus there is now no increase of water in 
a cosmological view ; but at the time of the flood, 
" the waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the 
earth." 

We shall have occasion in a subsequent chapter, to 
show that there was no rain prior to the Deluge; — if 
that were the case, then the continued evaporation for 
more than 1600 years, less the amount nightly depo- 
sited in the shape of dew, would have saturated the 
atmosphere, and aided in causing the vaporic ring to 
descend to the earth. 

The withdrawal of that ring, and adding it to the 
crust of the earth, accounts for the sudden change of 

E 



34 

climate from tropical to temperate and even to frigid ; 
and explains how it was that elephants, overtaken in 
their vain attempt to flee from the Deluge, were buried 
in ice or snow, in Siberia, and preserved intact, even 
to the hide and hair, until our day! The mountains 
rising to enormous heights and the corresponding 
valleys, being immediately filled with cold water from 
the regions of perpetual congelation, must necessarily 
have caused a sudden change in the temperature of 
the polar and middle latitudes. 

Philosophers have advanced many speculations to 
account for this great alteration of climate ; one of 
which is "the change in the shape of the Earth's 
orbit ;" 1200 years ago it was elliptical, now it is nearly 
circular; in a like period, if the present order of 
things continue, it will become elliptical again : — then, 
should its perihelion happen during our winter sol- 
stice, its greater proximity to the sun, whose rays 
would thus fall on the Northern Hemisphere, would 
cause a temperate climate at the North Pole ! It 
may have been to this, or some similar theory, that 
the facetious Butler alludes, where he says : 

" The learned Scaliger complain'd, 
'Gainst what Copernicus maintain'd, 
That in twelve hundred years and odd, 
The Sun had left its ancient road, 
And nearer to the earth is come 
'Bove fifty thousand miles from home." 

Sir Isaac Newton was of opinion that the planets 



35 

are worlds, composed of materials analogous to those 
of this earth, and subject to similar organic laws, one 
of which, namely, gravitation, he demonstrated, ope- 
rates there, as certainly as it does here. If this be 
true, it is probable the rings, which surround Saturn, 
are also composed of water, snow or ice, which at 
some future time, may descend and deluge that planet, 
as ours was deluged in the days of the patriarch 
Noah.* 

If " the degree of heat and light from the Sun at 
Saturn, is 80 times less than at the earth;" then 
the inundation will not be of water but of snow, hail 
or ice ; that planet having in such case already passed 
from the torrid to the frigid condition. 

So also, if Saturn be inhabited, it must be by ani- 
mals incomparably more hardy than any existing on 
earth. 

The most sceptical geologist, who is determined not 
to give his assent to anything that he does not find con- 
firmed in the rocks and crust of the earth, will never- 
theless admit, that the order of time observed by Moses 
in his account of the Creation, is " the natural order," 
and that events succeeded each other, in the order, if 
not within the time there stated. 

.Now, according to Moses, on the first day, " God 

* Since this suggestion was first published, and many years after it 
was written, the newspaper having the greatest circulation in Philadelphia,, 
mentions various late discoveries in astronomy, and classes "among the mosl 
curious," "the proof that Saturn's inner ring is bting absorbed iuto himself f" 
if this be the fact, then our prediction is about to be verified. 



36 

said, let there be light, and there was light." — On the 
morning of the second day, the land and water were 
not divided ; it was a confused mass — (nothing but soft 
mud upon the surface, enveloped in a thick dark mist, 
when this separation took place.) At that moment, had 
it been possible for a spectator to have been on what 
is now the earth, he could have seen nothing but one 
pervading, impenetrable dark cloud of muddy water! 
True, u there was light," but it was sporadic, and only 
sufficient [in that place] to render darkness visible : 
it was not until after the separation of the waters, that 
the sun, moon and stars could have appeared to man. 

Whether the light first spoken of, was the light of 
the heavenly bodies, refracted as before suggested, or 
that light which would arise from the violent concus- 
sion of the parts, as they rushed together, in obedience 
to the high behest, " the law of the Creator," — (attrac 
tion) — is immaterial : light, in miniature, can be pro 
duced in the present day, by the collision of hard sub 
stances — steel and flint for instance. If two pieces oi 
loaf sugar stricken violently together, in the dork, 
will emit light, how much more would the Silicious 
and ether rocks? There is indubitable evidence of 
excessive commotion at or immediately preceding the 
formation of granite. Even air when suddenly com- 
pressed, will not only yield light, but heat. See de- 
scription of Plate II. , in our last chapter. 

It is^unimportant to inquire in what way light was 
produced; it is sufficient, that light could have been, 
nay, must have been produced by the violent and 



37 

sudden concretion or arrangement of the parts, by the 
evolution of gases, or as a sequence to certain electrical 
conditions; which light, however produced, would 
have been more apparent in the absence of the sun, 
moon and stars, than if those luminaries had been 
operating upon the Earth at that time. 

A volume of water rapidly falling from an immense 
height (and by implication, rising at the same rate, in 
like quantity and to alike height elsewhere,) is capa- 
ble of producing light ; as was noticed when the water- 
spout, as it was called, descended on a mountain in 
Pennsylvania, tearing out a large portion of soil, and 
overflowing the Juniata, carrying destruction along 
the whole length of that beautiful valley. We have 
seen the same phenomenon, on a small scale, in a douche 
bath at a Hydropathic Institution. In the latter case, 
there was an increase of temperature as well as of light. 

The return of the antediluvian ring to the earth, 
was not the only source from wdiich the water deluged 
the land ; for we have reason to believe, it was at that 
awful time that the mountains rose from the bottom of 
the sea, ejected by the expansive force of the internal 
heat; and thus "all the foundations of the great deep 
were broken up ;" which occurrence would cause a 
wave to roll over the land, nearly if not quite sufficient 
to inundate the habitable globe. 

'• But the last mountain top of the antediluvian world 
was covered with water ; — truth then being on board 
the floating ark, in the eight witnesses, on that ocean 
without shore or island ! These eight human beings 



38 

were the connecting links between two worlds : and 
lest their narrative should be denied in the coming 
profane ages of philosophic scepticism, the massive 
floors on which the ocean rolled were torn up, and 
piled awaj on the tops of mighty mountains, in monu- 
mental strata, on whose pages are written the history of 
a drowned world, — a record of God's judgment litho- 
graphed on the primal formations of the enduring 
rock!" 

Great concussions of the earth are generally accom- 
panied with much rain. This is the natural conse- 
quence of a great convulsion of nature. We shall 
have occasion, before we close, to mention a modern 
instance. 

As the mountains rose, other portions of the land 
sank; a change of level took place ; the habitable parts 
were submerged and the bottom of the sea became the 
tops of lofty mountains; this accounts for our finding 
no remains of the antediluvian inhabitants, who had 
iron and brass founderies, — manufactories of musi- 
cal instruments, and doubtless understood the art of 
vitrifying clay, if not of silex, both of which vitrifica- 
tions are nearly indestructible by time— hence, if the 
part then inhabited had not been sunk, we should 
have found some remains of their pottery, bricks or 
glass. Nothing of that sort, nor of man himself, of an 
age coeval with the Deluge, has as yet been found. 

We are aware that human bones have been found 
in the Cavern of Durfort (about three hundred feet 
above the level of the Mediterranean;) also, in the 



Quarries of Kosritz, and in a few other places ; but 
there are attending circumstances which render it im- 
probable that they were antediluvian ; they certainly 
are not in the place where those individuals had lived, 
Being in detached bones, no whole skeletons, and 
those only partly fossilized, they afford no reliable evi- 
dence, that they existed before the flood. 

" A strange chimera of beasts and men, 
Made up of pieces heterogene; 
Such as in nature never met 
In eodem subjecto yet." 

Cuvier says, "It is wonderful that among all these 
mammifera, of which, at the present day, the greater 
part have a congenerate species, in warm climates, 
there has not been found one quadrumanous animal ! 
not a single bone, nor a single tooth of a monkey ; not 
even a bone or tooth of an extinct species of this ani- 
mal has ever been detected. Neither are there any 
remains of man. All the bones of the human race 
which have been collected, along with those which 
we have spoken of, have been the result of accident; 
and besides, their number is extremely small, which 
it certainly would not be, if men had been established 
in countries inhabited by these animals. Where then 
was the human race? Did the last and most perfect 
work of the Creator, exist no where ? Did the animals 
which now accompany him on the earth, and of which 
there are no fossile remains to be found, surround 
him? Have the lands in which they lived together 



40 

• 

been swallowed up, when those which they now inha- 
bit, and of which a great inundation might have de- 
stroyed the anterior population, were left dry?" 

This is the language of the great fossilist ; to his 
interrogatories, we apprehend the new theory of the 
Deluge, gives a satisfactory reply. 

Probably the antediluvians resided on that portion 
of the earth which is now covered by the Mediterranean 
sea, and this may account for our finding no remains of 
that ancient people. Lieut. W. F. Lynch, U. S. N., 
in his narration of the expedition to the river Jordan 
and the Dead Sea, made by order of the United States 
government, speaking of Jaffa, a city upon the shore 
of the Mediterranean, says, " Jaffa is, perhaps, the 
oldest city in the world; and Pliny calls it, an antedi- 
luvian one, According to tradition, here Noah built 
the Ark. * * * * Our host, (the 

American Vice Consul,) also told us of a ruin, (like- 
wise on the border of the Mediterranean sea,) supposed 
to be antediluvian; and we went to see it." 

This narrative mentions a curious fact, which has a 
bearing upon another portion of the Theory we are 
now explaining, but we shall merely mention it. The 
lamented Lieut. Dale, who sacrificed his life in the 
arduous undertaking, ascertained by actual measure- 
ment with the spirit level, that the depression of the 
surface of the Dead Sea, below that of the Mediter- 
ranean, is a little over thirteen hundred feet ! and this 
result corresponds with the triangulation of Lieut. 
Symonds, R N. 



41 

A mere change of level was, of itself, sufficient to 
drown the world ; and if we add the return to the 
earth of the ring which flew off in steam, and de- 
scended in water, we have discovered ample means to 
produce the flood described by Moses, in a manner 
strictlv conformable with the text of his narrative. 

Although we have shown the water to have been 
only twenty-eight feet, and not five miles deep, yet 
even that quantity was sufficient to render a large por- 
tion of the earth uninhabitable, unless those waters 
could be carried away to some other place. That they 
have been so carried away, is plain ; for they have left 
the land high and dry. Let us see where these waters 
went to. 

Upon calculation, it will be found, that the hills, 
mountains and lands above the level of the ocean will 
account for a place being left in " the great deep," of suf- 
ficient capacity to hold the twenty-eight feet of water ; 
for it never has been pretended by anybody, that these 
mountains w r ere new creations, but that they came from 
prior portions of the Earth. The prevailing idea at 
present is, that they were protruded from the bottom 
of the sea by the internal forces. Consequently, be- 
ing only a change of level, other portions of the 
earth's surface must have been depressed in due pro- 
portion, and into these depressions ran the surplus 
water, which we now call oceans; seas are smaller 
bodies of water, such as were so called by Deity at the 
Creation. 

F 



42 



CHAPTER III. 

" Oh blindness to the future ! kindly giv'n, 
That each may nil the circle mark'd by HeavY. 
Who sees with equal eye, as God of ail, 
A hero perish or a sparrow fall, 
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl r d, 
And now a bubble burst, and now a world !" 
****** 

Whether the level of the Ocean is gradually sub- 
siding, is a mooted point ; but it is agreed, upon all 
hands, that it is not rising above its former height ; 
how then are we to account for the displacement of 
the water by millions of cubic yards of earth deposited 
in the ocean, every day, from the estuaries of rivers, 
by numerous coral islands and reefs, which are now, 
and have been for ages, forming in the Ocean, and 
by depositions of land which, within the period of au- 
thentic history, have caused sea-ports to become inland 
towns ? 

The encroachment of the sea upon the shores, by 
washing away portions of the land, and in some 
places, demolishing cliffs, — submerging fields and even 
towns, without any perceptible permanent rise above 
the established line of high water,— is not satisfactory 
evidence of a rise in the surface of the ocean ; 
for, as " water w[]\ find its level," such rise, from 
the mobility of the material, would be general, and 



43 

observable in all portions of the earth washed by -the 
sea ; — it shows abrasion of the land — not elevation 
of the water — and therefore, it only adds to the diffi- 
culty of the problem. 

Has there been a corresponding diminution of water, 
by the crystallization of rocks, or otherwise? — has there 
been an elevation of the land, either by one grand 
effort ; by a succession of mighty throes ; or by more 
gentle elevations, such as took place in our own day, 
along the whole coast of Chili; when, as is well 
known, that vast shore of the Pacific Ocean rose eight 
inches at one time. Or has there been a subsidence 
or shrinkage (so to speak) of the parts already covered 
by water? Or can all these suppositions combined, 
account for the immense displacement of water caused 
by the protrusions and deposits above alluded to? 

We propound these statements interrogatively, in 
order to call the attention of scientific individuals and 
associations to these interesting phenomena, which 
are worthy of further investigation, by such as have 
more leisure and ability than ourselves.* 

* Since the foregoing was in type, we have seen in one of the newspapers 
the following article ; the mission spoken of, we presume, is Dolores, near 
San Francisco : 

" Change in the Elevation of the Surface of ths Earth at the Mission, 
by Volcanic Action. — We have been favored with some observations made by 
Baron de Terloo, a Belgian naturalist and traveller, now residing in our city, 
showing that an important change has taken place in the level of the ground 
about the Mission. During the last twenty months the surface of the earth at 
the Mission has been elevated about eighteen inches, but the change was no 
accompanied by any perceptible quake or subterranean noise. It is well know- 
that very remarkable changes of this kind arc constantly going on in Soutl 



44 

History tells of the deluge of Ogyges and of Deuca- 
lion's flood : the former about 1850 and the latter 
about 1500 years before the Christian era: one being 
500, the other 800 years later than the time given by 
Moses as the date of Noah's flood. If these did not 
relate to the Noachian deluge, they must refer to 
smaller floods ; for, no general deluge has been pre- 
tended by anybody to have taken place since Noah's 
flood. It would be more difficult to account for these 
partial inundations, than for the general Deluge ; yet 
we do not deny their occurrence: for there has been 
a partial, yet very extensive flood on this Continent 
since it was raised from the Ocean, probably before it 
was inhabited by the red men. This flood we can 
account for. It has long been the opinion of the 
learned, that when the mountain ranges of North 
America were protruded, they formed a dam against 
the waters from the north which continued to flow 
into this dam until they overtopped the lower portions 
of the mountains, where they broke through and de- 
luded all this section of the Continent; the water 
rushino- down the depressions or gorges in the moun- 
tains, known as the "water gap," — "wind gap,"— 
" Lehigh gap," &c. Probably, the Apalachian range, 
known in Pennsylvania by the name of "Alleghany 

America. In the Straits of Magellan, the earth has been raised more than six- 
teen feet • the islands of Chiloe and Madre de Dios have raised ten feet ; Tal- 
cahuano seventeen feet ; Vina twelve feet in twelve years, and Cohija five feet 
in two vears. The earth has likewise been perceptibly raised within a few 
years at Panama. Viejo and San Bias."— Alta Californian. 



45 

Mountains," were first protruded ; after which, tne 
Rocky Mountains suddenly arose, and caused a vast 
body of water to roll with tremendous force against 
the first-mentioned barrier, aiding and accelerating the 
catastrophe. The pressure of water being in propor- 
tion to the square of its altitude, when this pressure 
was partly relieved by the depression of the water to the 
level of the present summit of. the wind gap, it ceased 
to flow in that direction the other gaps being sufficient 
to vent the remaining water. There is abundant geo- 
logical evidence of this in the vicinity of the moun- 
tains; and here, in Philadelphia, between fifty and 
one hundred miles south-east of the mountains, the 
original surface was, and is, in many places, fifteen or 
sixteen feet below the present surface ; as has often 
been disclosed in digging wells ; for,, at that depth, we 
come to a meadow containing dried grass, with its 
roots attached and "in place;" also, roots of trees, 
pieces of bark, and six or eight inches of black vege- 
table mould ! Stems of trees have been found pros- 
trate, embedded in the earth, (never upright,) which 
shows that the locality had been swept with the besom 
of destruction before the clay and gravel were depo- 
sited. 

As we do not find this under surface (if it may be 
so called,) in all parts of this city, it may have been, 
that there were more than one of these partial floods ; 
the first of which, deposited those parts where the 
submerged surface is not to be found; — and thus, a 
part of the peninsula on which the city stands was 



46 

tiim an island or islands, the waters of the Schuylkill 
and Delaware rivers meeting a little south of Bushill, 
whilst a subsequent flood filled up that channel of 
communication between the two rivers, and connected 
the island or islands with the main land— thus form- 
ing the site upon which the central and southern por- 
tions of Philadelphia have been erected. 

The Deluge of Ogyges destroyed the province of 
Attica, more than two centuries previous to the time 
when Cecrops, a native of Egypt, founded Athens, 
1556 years before Christ. 

The successor of Cecrops was Cranaus. In his 
time, happened Deucalion's flood, in Thessaly. These 
two inundations may be accounted for, by supposing 
the Earth to have been surrounded by additional 
smaller rings or belts, as is the case with the planet 
Saturn, at the present day : after the principal ring or 
belt had by its greater bulk or density, first descended 
and caused the Noachian deluge, then these small 
rings, in due course of time, may also have descended 
to the Earth, and caused the smaller floods just 
alluded to; as we have no decided proof of this, 
we do not assert it to have been so, but merely throw 
out the suggestion for future investigators to consider 
and decide. 

" The fact of a universal cataclysm is not only 
shown by the appearance of the earth, but by civil 
history, by tradition, and by the condition and num- 
ber of its inhabitants. 

" The paucity of mankind, the vast tracts of unin- 



47 

habited land which are mentioned in the history of 
the primitive ages, show that the human race at pre- 
sent on the earth, are but of recent origin, and that 
they sprung from a small stock ; the great number of 
petty kingdoms and states, in the first ages, concur to 
the same purpose." 

Sceptics place themselves in a dilemma. If there 
had been no general Deluge, mankind at present 
w T ould be too numerous for the earth, even in the short 
time the world has existed according to the Scriptural 
account; — if, "instead of days, w T e are to understand 
thousands of years," it requires no appeal to arith- 
metic, to see plainly, that every part of the habitable 
globe would have been overstocked with people long 
ago : so that, either there must have been a general 
deluge, or the world is not as old as Moses says it is. 
Nobody pretends that it is younger ; therefore, there 
must have been a general destruction of our race at 
some time since the Creation. 

"The world before the flood" was principally seas 
and swamps, suitable for the habitation of reptiles, 
monsters of the deep, amphibious, Saurian, and other 
animals of low organization, only a small portion was 
fit for the residence of man ; and accordingly we find 
that only a small number occupied it. The Deluge, 
prepared the earth for its present inhabitants ; — before 
the flood, it was sufficient for all that were then upon 
it, but could not have accommodated the tenth part of 
the present numbers : hence, the physical necessity for 
the Deluge. 



4S 

" And God saw tliat the wickedness of man was 
great in the earth, and that every imagination of the 
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." 

Consequently, had these been permitted to exist, 
they would have contaminated succeeding genera- 
tions : hence, the moral necessity for the Deluge. 

If the antediluvians were not numerous nations, 
but only one large family, the descendants from one 
man and one woman, then there are abundant physio- 
logical reasons for their destruction. 

From the earliest period, all terrestrial things have 
been subjected to change : — the solid rocks have their 
increment and decrement; the great globe itself is not 
exempt; thus far the type of animal life has been as- 
cending ; whether it has found its culminating point, 
and will, ere long, commence its retrogression, or 
whether a race of animals as much superior to man as 
man is to a monkey, will appear upon this earth — 
none can tell; although reasoning by analogy, it is 
more than probable. If it be otherwise, then have 
we seen "the beginning of the end ;" and retroces- 
sion or destruction must follow. It is a law of nature 
that, after individuals arrive at perfection, that is, at 
maturity, and have performed the part intended by 
the Creator, they decay and perish ! Inception, 
growth, maturity, decay, and eventually decomposi- 
tion, or destruction, is the order prescribed for classes, 
genera, species, races and families, as well as for indi- 
viduals : the larger the class or division, the slower 
the process, or rather, the wider apart the epochs that 



49 

show the change ; nor is there anything in this, more 
strange or wonderful than w T e witness in other works 
of nature ; it is the course which wise and prudent 
persons pursue; if they make an implement, after it 
has performed its office, done all that it is capable of 
doing, all that they wished or expected of it, they 
alter or destroy it, or leave it to decay. 

Many species and families have disappeared from 
this earth, some of them, without leaving any cognate 
representative behind them ! but such is the wisdom, 
power and benevolence of the Creator, that where a 
terrestrial class or species is removed, one of higher 
organization, of superior type, generally supplies its 
place — so that the world is not a loser, but a gainer 
by the operation. 

What right have we to suppose that the order of 
nature is to be reversed or suspended for the accom- 
modation of poor, weak, vain man? Progression ap- 
pears to be one of the fundamental laws of the Deity! 
To stand still, or to continue the same rotation for 
ever, seems to be no part of His plan : at least we 
have not been able to detect any indication of it in 
His former w 7 orks. Motion and change are a part of 
His economy ; nothing, that we know of, is immutable 
but Himself. 

Some suppose that the superior beings which are 
hereafter to appear on earth, will be produced by an 
improvement of a portion of our race; they assert 
(and with reason,) that already, 

"Man differs more from man, than man from b«nst." 
G 



50 

If this be true, it would not require a greater change 
than has heretofore taken place, to engraft upon the 
genus homo, a species as much above the present race 
of man, as man is now above an ourang outang ! 

The original inhabitants of Greece were extremely 
rude and savage,— scarcely one degree superior to 
some brutes. They lived on herbs and roots, and 
either lay in the open fields, or, at best, sheltered 
themselves in dens, clefts of the rocks, and hollow 
trees : the ancient Britons were not much better, if 
we are to believe the testimony of one of their de- 
scendants, — 

" Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for us-e, 
Sare their own painted skins, our sires had none. 
The hardy chief, upon the rugged rock 
Washed by the sea, or on the gravelly bank 
Thrown up by wintry torrents roaring loud, — 
Fearless of wrong, reposed his weary strength."" 

Compare these earlier people with some of the pre- 
sent inhabitants of Europe, or the United States of 
America, and we will find a greater discrepancy than 
there is between those Greeks or Britons and some 
beasts of the present day ! As respects intelligence, 
forethought, affection, and habits, there will not be 
found a greater difference between inferior men and 
superior brutes, than there is between the above men- 
tioned races. The American Indians, called root- 
diggers, for instance, are almost as deficient as those 
Greeks and Britons, — perhaps more so. 

One thing we do know ; that a great change is about 



51 

to take place. The human race cannot continue much 
longer to increase at the present known ratio ; for, at 
that rate, the State of Pennsylvania, in 100 years, 
will contain as many inhabitants as the United States 
do now; say twenty-three millions. In about 150 
years, the United States will contain as many as the 
present population of the whole earth, (1000 millions,) 
and then, the total number of inhabitants on this 
globe will be thirty-two billions, or in other words 
thirty-two thousand millions ; being one human being 
for every acre of land on the globe ; good, bad, and 
indifferent ! In about 500 years, there will be four 
thousand persons for every acre, (little more than 3 feet 
square for each person ;) and in 600 years, (being less 
than one-third the period that has elapsed since the 
death of Jesus Christ,) there will be as many persons 
as can stand upon the ground ! — so that a change 
must take place, either in the procreative power of 
man, in the duration of human life, in the quantity of 
land surface, or in some other way. 

There are those who believe that the earth increases 
in size by additional growths, like the coats of an onion, 
and many plausible facts are cited to sustain that opi- 
nion; but where would the materials come from, to 
form those coats ? Such additions would alter the bulk, 
if not increase the weight, of the globe and destroy the 
equilibrium that now exists;— destruction and chaos 
would follow ; be that as it may, it is impossible that 
things can continue to go on as at present ! — But be- 
fore the change takes place, the inferior and less useful 



52 

animals will be exterminated ! — one race after another 
will become extinct, to make room for man ! — the earth 
will be cultivated with the spade, or other garden cul- 
ture, whilst nearly all animal power (human excepted,) 
will be superseded by inanimate agents, that destroy 
nothing which man can eat ; all means of sustenance 
will be called into requisition. The capability to sus- 
tain human life will be taxed to the utmost. Penn- 
sylvania can maintain more under the surface, than 
she now does on the surface. The waters, rivers, 
bays, and inland seas of the United States, can sup- 
port more than twice our present population! Im- 
provements in agricultural chemistry are already in- 
creasing the crops two fold ; a thousand new modes 
will be adopted to postpone the catastrophe for a time, 
but they cannot prevent it ; the change must come ! 
But what that change will be, 

'• Who knows but He whose hands the lightning forms, 
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms?" 

Nevertheless, no one need be alarmed. We have 
had ample evidence that the Creator is benevolent, 
omnicient and omnipotent; — who sees the end from 
the beginning ; who never did, and never will, make 
any mistake or miscalculation, and therefore, no doubt, 
has provided a way to meet the contingency which 
evidently is about to happen ! The child is now born, 
whose grand children may witness this change. It 
was about 2000 years from the Creation to the Deluge ; 
about 2000 years from the Deluge to the coming of 



53 



our Saviour; and in about 2000 years from the time 
of our Saviour, say 150 years hence, the earth will 
be full of people ! 150 years is not a long period in 
the age of a nation; therefore legislators, the powers 
that now be, should so legislate as to prepare for a 
state of things unprecedented in the annals of our 
race. 



54 



CHAPTER IV. 

n He, who through vast immensity can pierce, 

See worlds on worlds compose one universe, 

Observe how system into system runs, 

What other planets circle other suns, 

What varied being peoples every star — 

May tell why heav'n has made us as we are." 
* * * * * 

" In the beginning God created the Heaven and the 
Earth. And the Earth was without form and void ; 
and darkness was upon the face of the deep." 

'• There is no effect without a cause" Every ma- 
terial substance, known to us, must have had a begin- 
ning ; at which time and place, there was a power 
adequate to its formation : that power, (called by many 
different names,) was God ! We reverently make this 
acknowledgment at this stage of our enquiry, in order 
that no one may for a moment suppose we are attempt- 
ing to account for " the origin of things" in any other 
way. It is "the fool," and the fool only, who "hath 
said in his heart, verily there is no God." But inas- 
much as we do know, that the Creator uses means to 
accomplish ends, we consider it no sacrilege to endea- 
vor to discover what means were used in the Creation 
of this world. 

We will therefore boldly investigate the truth, and 
shall not fear to follow, wherever that leads, let the 
consequences be what they may. 



55 

Some philosophers, not satisfied to commence at the 
"beginning," undertake to " go back a little farther," 
and say how matters stood before u God created the 
Heaven and the Earth," and assert that, prior to that 
creation, " the space now occupied by our solar sys- 
tem was filled with a fiery haze," — probably forming 
some great ante-mundane comet ! As this cooled and 
consolidated, the outer crust peeled off, and by the 
law of attraction was " rolled together as a scroll" into 
a separate mass, and formed the planet Herschel : so 
with Jupiter, the Earth, and all the other planets, 
down to Mercury : (perhaps the " Chrystallic force" 
may account, in part, for this concretion or consolida- 
tion.) That another planet will in like manner be 
formed, still nearer to the* sun, and another, and an- 
other, until the sun itself will be so reduced in size as 
to appear to us only as a star of the first magnitude ! 
But inasmuch as it is approaching "the milky way," 
the stars which form that celestial pathway of the 
Deity, (that highway in the heavens, along which the 
Almighty, in majesty, power and glory, moves among 
his works,) will appear to us to increase in brilliancy, 
owing to greater proximity, until their united light 
will equal our present daylight, and will thus usher 
in the coming of " the perfect day." 

If this theory be true, then after the Earth was thus 
formed, and before the formation of the planet Venus, 
the sun being immensely larger than at present, (occu- 
pying the whole orbit of Venus,) and consequently, 
much nearer the Earth than it is now, the climate of 



56 

the Earth at that time must have been far more torrid 
than at present. 

Why should not the sun decrease and finally pass 
away, leaving the stars remaining, which are known 
to us as a part of the solar system ? We find a parallel 
in the animal and vegetable kingdoms; 

" All forms that perish, other forms supply, 
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die) 
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, 
They rise, they break, and to that sea return." 

If man, the most perfect of all Created beings that 
we have seen, is subject to this general law, why may 
not the inanimate world, yea the sun itself, be subject 
to a somewhat analogous " general law." 

Others suppose the Earth to have been thrown off 
from the sun, like a spark from a cutler's grindstone, 
and that the rotary motion of the sun, communicated 
the rotary motion to the earth ; which rotary motion 
was continued by the operation of two forces, one of 
which is called centripetal force, or the attraction of 
gravitation, the other centrifugal or projectile force, or 
repulsion ; so that these planets 

" Whether by attraction drawn, or by repulsion driven, 
Or both combined as one, perform the will of heaven.'' 

Centrifugal or projectile force, repulsion, propulsion 
or expulsion, seem to be unnecessary ; for it has been 
observed, that the Almighty never uses two means to 
produce an end when one will answer ! nay, more ge- 
nerally, he produces many results from a single cause : 



57 

s< Inhuman works, though labor'd on with pain, 
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain ; 
In God's one single can its end produce, 
Yet serves to second too some other use." 

Matter is inert ; that is to say, passive, as to mo- 
tion: it has no greater tendency or "inclination," 
(independent of gravitation and friction) to rest, than 
to motion. 

May not " repulsion" be the counter attraction, (so 
to speak,) which each body has towards itself in pro- 
portion to its bulk and density ? 

It is well known that the attraction of gravitation in- 
creases as we approach the Earth's surface, (in inverse 
proportion to the square of the distance,) and some per- 
sons suppose, that gravity continues to increase at the 
same rate as we descend below the surface ; but that is 
not so : for there the ratio is reversed, and gravitation 
begins to decrease in proportion to the amount of matter 
that has been passed, until at the centre, the power of 
attraction is nothing ; because the attraction of the 
part then passed, is as great as that of the opposite part 
which has not been reached, consequently, it is equal 
both ways ; hence we can understand how the central 
portion of the earth may be, a molten mass of exces- 
sively heated fluid, or even of gas, without danger to 
the inhabitants of the surface ; we must not confound 
the absolute * weight of the whole globe, with the 
known weight of materials at the surface. 

If matter continued to increase in weight below, as 
it does above the surface, then the water at the bottom 

H 



58 

of the ocean must be nearly, if not quite solidified by 
the enormous pressure of the superincumbent weight. 
We have heard it asserted, that were it possible to cut 
out a cubic foot of that water, and bring it to the sur- 
face in its condensed state, it would be so solid that 
we could not drive a nail into it, any more than we 
can into a cubical block of granite or of glass ; but for 
the reasons above assigned, we think that such would 
not be the case. 

It has long been the opinion of philosophers, that 
the exterior portion of the earth is comparatively only 
a thin crust. The theory of attraction, as above stated, 
furnishes one argument in explanation of the fact, that 
this crust does not fall into the central fire or internal 
cavity, and would not do so, were it possible for man 
to bore a hole into the molten mass, and use the heat 
for economical or manufacturing purposes. This is 
an evidence of the Wisdom, as well as of the pow T er 
of the Creator. 

So long as the relative powder of attraction of the 
Sun and Earth continue as at present, the Moon must 
revolve round the earth in its present orbit; nor will 
its position be changed should other planets be formed 
out of the sun by concretion and contraction, and that 
luminary diminished in size; for the sum of the joint- 
attraction of these new planets with the remaining 
portion of the sun, will collectively possess as much 
attractive power as the sun itself does now. 

If the new planets hereafter to be formed out of 
what is now the sun, are to be "thrown off" or ex- 



59 

felled from the sun, then the first new planet would be 
ejected beyond the surface of the sun, in which case 
that new planet might be brought nearer to the earth 
and the moon ; and as attraction or gravitation in- 
creases inversely as the square of the distance, &c, 
although the sum total of the attraction might not 
be absolutely increased, yet the alteration of distance, 
of cubical content, or of density, might increase or 
diminish (according to circumstances,) the attraction 
towards the earth and its satellite, and thus unhinge 
the universe ; for such would be the result sooner or 
later, of a disturbance of the balance of attraction 
now existing. This doctrine of expulsion destroys 
the sidereal "balance of power," and the beautiful 
harmony of creation, as it would appear to exist, if 
concretion or attraction were the simple and effectual 
mode of formation. These considerations operate 
against the doctrine of the " ejection" of planets, be- 
cause it would then appear that the Creator's works 
must end in confusion and destruction, before having 
fulfilled the object of their creation; which would 
imply a want of prescience and also of omnipotence. 
We will show in our last chapter, when we come to 
describe and explain Plate III., that had the planets 
been formed by expulsion, it is probable the sun would 
have exploded or burst, all at once, into angular, irre- 
gular pieces, like some of the asteroids, and would thus 
have been obliterated for ever. 

Likewise, with the annular motion of the Earth ; 
the Sun attracts it in one direction, whilst the sum of 



eo 

the joint attraction of all the other suns and planetary 
systems, attracts it in the opposite direction and keeps 
it in its place, so that neither the moon nor the earth 
or any other planet or satellite, not even the Sun itself, 
can leave its respective orbit. 

There are philosophers who suppose that ou*r Sun, 
with all his planets and their satellites, revolves around 
another and a greater Sun (which for perspicuity we 
call Sun No. 2,) and that this greater Sun, with our 
Sun for one of his planets, and the Earth, &c, as 
satellites, revolves around a still greater Sun, (which 
we call Sun No. 3,) and that this Sun No. 3, with 
No. 2, as one of his planets with our sun and planets 
for satelites, revolves around a still greater Sun, (which 
we call Sun No. 4,) and so on od infinitum. 

This is a grand idea, which few minds can truly, can- 
didly and comprehendingly entertain, as far as above 
described : for to do this understanding^, they must 
take into view, at one and the same time, all the com- 
plicated motions and extreme and unequal velocities, 
of all and every one of the suns, worlds and satellites, 
above alluded to ! If the brain do not whirl and 
stagger under the contemplation of these numerous 
rapid motions, let any who are able, try how much 
farther they can go? If they be truthful, they wilL 
soon acknowledge, that the brain begins to reel or 
memory to betray. 

Beautiful as the preceding suppositions appear, 
there are serious objections to them. The Sun No. 2, 
must be immensely larger than our Sun : — No 3, than 



61 

No, 2 ; No. 4, than No. 3 ; and so on, beyond any- 
thing of which we can rationally form a conception. 
If this were so, should we not see these immense suns, 
and be able to note their evolutions around one an- 
other? True, we have reason to believe that some of 
the fixed stars are larger than our sun, but we have no 
evidence that there are other suns immensely larger 
than those. 

A principle is not to be depended upon that will not 
bear to be carried out to its ultimate results. We 
therefore abandon this beautiful theory of our sun 
revolving around another and a greater sun, as above 
described ; because, upon this hypothesis, the suns 
increasing in size in proportion to the sum of the 
cubes of their diameters and of the diameters of their 
circumambient planets and satellites, one would be- 
come so great that, like Aaron's rod, it would swallow up 
all the rest; or in other words, would become so large 
as to contain or absorb all the smaller suns, planets and 
satellites, which is altogether improbable, if not phy- 
sically impossible ; and because it is not necessary 
that there should be a central nucleus or solid body 
around which our sun revolves. We know there are 
many stars, believed to be suns, that revolve around 
open centres! — this is the case with numerous double 
stars, as they are called. 

Thus it appears, this single, simple principle of 
attraction is sufficient to hold the universe together, 
keeping every orb within its proper sphere or orbit ; 
and if attraction alone is sufficient to produce this, 



62 

where is the necessity or propriety of attempting to 
discover some additional , uimeeessary, and more com- 
p ieated ] 

It is evident from been said already and 

from observations connected 3 with, (which for 

the Sc\ brevity have herein been omitted, but 

which will readily occur to every reflecting mathema- 
tical mind,) that the production of this earth and ail 
other worlds (and all that are therein,) must have re- 
sulted froi ) i few simple- natural laws, established by 
the Creator "i beginning. 

Should any hoi i have any lifficulty as to 

" a Great First Cause," let him take any object in 
nature and trace it to its origin : a very short process of 
of ratiocination will bring him to the Creator. For ex- 
ample, an oak tree : there it is, see it, feel it, or apply any 
other : al test, until you have no doubt of its be- 

ino- there, then ask yourself where did it come from? 
from an acorn: — where did that come from? a pre- 
vious oak, which also came from an acorn ; where did 
the first acorn come from ? 

* There may be those h haying selected the "weakest, 

instead of the ions of Free think 

Strange as it may seem to them, -we believe that those positions -which they 
deem impreg ibie he denial of "final cause;.*' (deduced from the 

alleged f of matter.) are among those which are most easily 

refuted: prising that me a who have devoted much time to scientific 

investigs should hare stumbled at such trifling difficulties. 

But as disquisitions of thai rtake more of a theological, than 

of a scientific character, and require great amplification, we shall not detain the 
reader with lengthv observations thereon. 



63 

According to the new theory we should say the first 
oak was the result of a certain law or order, that cer- 
tain salts, under certain circumstances of heat, air, 
earth, moisture, electricity, &c., should produce an 
oak, as will be more fully explained, in a subsequent 
chapter. From whence proceeded that order? who 
made that law ? 

There must have been a power capable of ordaining 
such a law, and putting it into execution, — that power, 
is the " Great First Cause, — the Creator— God ! 



64 



CHAPTER V. 

" Converse and lore, mankind might strongly draw, 
When love was liberty, and nature law." 

" The same which in a sire the sons obey'd, 
A prince the father of a people made." 

" Till then, by nature crowned, each patriarch sate, 
King, priest, and parent of bis growing State ;" 

" Tben looking up from sire to sire, explored 
One great first Father, and that first adord. 
Ur, plain tradition that this all begun, 
Cojivey'd unbroken faith from sire to son.'* 



About four thousand years ago, all the inhabitants 
of this earth were destroyed by water, except eight 
souls ; namely, Noah and his family. Since that 
time they have increased to one thousand millions ; 
according to which, the population must have doubled 
in number, every one hundred and forty -two and a 
half years; (say every one hundred and forty-three 
years for round numbers,) and this increase has taken 
place, notwithstanding war, pestilence and famine! 
War has destroyed millions. History is full of the 
records of battles, with which we are so familiar, that 
they need not be particularized. It is to be hoped, 
that the time will come wdien historians may find some- 
thing more valuable to record, than wholesale murder, 



65 

and will no longer look upon the destruction of our 
kind as the glory of a Hero.* 

With the accounts of famines we are also familiar ; 
as well those caused by the wrath of man, when 
mothers have eaten their own infants, as those 
impiously attributed to the Almighty, called by many 
devout persons, " visitations of Providence ;" in ap- 
plying which term, they make a demon of the Deity ! 
which is blasphemy ! 

Famine and pestilence are no more the act of God, 
than war ; all of them are the result of the errors of 
mankind, in not following the moral, social or physical 
laws established by the Creator : all could have been 
prevented if mankind had been wise and obedient ; it 
is to the ignorance, folly or wickedness of man, that 
we should ascribe these fearful calamities. 

Devastation by pestilence, seems to have made the 
smallest impression upon our recollection, owing, pro- 
bably, to our viewing it, as a special "act of Provi- 
dence; (natural death also, is frequently . so consi- 
dered;) it may therefore be proper to refer to a few 
remarkable epidemics that have occurred within the 
period of authentic history, in order to show, that not- 
withstanding all these great drawbacks, the people 

* " War is the inexorable foe of all progress, intellectual, social, and spiritual. 
The man who can slay his brother, or who encourages another to slay him, re- 
nounces his god-like character, and returns to the community of the hyaena and 
the tiger. Civilization stands still when armies take the field. It retrogrades 
when they leave it. Humanity shrieks at the trumpet-note of battle ; and re- 
ligion stoops abashed, in presence of the warrior with red hands, and the sover- 
eign with a bloody heart."— (North British Review, May, 1854.) 

I 



6G 

have increased to their present number ; and as we, of 
" this enlightened age," think we know better than 
our predecessors, how to maintain or restore health, 
we need not, in our calculations of future increase, 
make great allowance for famines, should any here- 
after occur, prior to that period which seems to be 
approaching, when the demand for food will exceed 
the possibility of adequate supply. 

" The first pestilence of which we have a detailed 
account is that recorded by Thucydides, which visited 
Athens about four hundred and thirty years before the 
Christian era. It appears to have been identical in 
in kind with the great plague of London in 1665; the 
accounts written of the one applying almost exactly 
to the other. The mortality which attended it seems 
almost incredible. It was followed, at uneven periods, 
by other visitations of pestilence, which swept off 
millions of the human race, at Rome, Egypt, Syria, 
and finally Constantinople. The great Plague in 
London cut off 68,596 people, before its ravages were 
stayed by the great fire in 1666, by which the Cathe- 
dral, and many other churches, with 13,200 houses 
were destroyed ! Gibbon relates that, in the reign of 
Justinian, A. D. 527, a plague devastated the empire 
for fifty-two years. During a portion of this time, 
when Constantinople was visited by the epidemic, ten 
thousand persons died daily. Two centuries later, two 
hundred thousand persons were carried off, in that 
capital, by another visitation of the plague. In the 
earlier visitation, many smaller cities were depopulated 



67 

by it Whole districts, devoted to agriculture, were 
abandoned, the harvest being left to wither on the 
ground. Gibbon computes the entire mortality, during 
the fifty-two years of plague, at one hundred millions. 
" During the middle ages, the plague swept over Eu- 
rope, several times, with frightful violence. Boccaccio 
has left a vivid nar-rative of its appearance at Florence, 
about the middle of the fourteenth centurv. It bore 
the name of the ' Black Death,' and closely resem- 
bled the old plague of Athens. Visiting England, it 
swept off fifty thousand inhabitants of London alone, 
though the British capital had not, at that time, pro- 
bably more than two hundred thousand inhabitants," 
(one-fourth of the entire population.) " Fifty years 
later, the plague appeared again in London, when 
thirty thousand persons perished of it within a twelve- 
month. In 1517, an epidemic called the " Sweating 
Sickness," broke out in Europe, and extending to 
England, deprived the principal towns, according to 
Stowe, of half of their inhabitants. In 1603, nearly 
forty thousand persons died of plague in London. 
About the same period, Constantinople is said to have 
lost two hundred thousands of its inhabitants by the 
same disease. As the age of official statistics had not 
yet arisen, these numbers may have been occasionally 
exaggerated ; but the very vastness of the estimates, 
even if only approximations, proves the frightful rate 
of mortality ." Notwithstanding this appalling destruc- 
tion, London revived, and is now far Jarger than ever, 
and mankind have increased to one thousand millions. 



68 

At present the increase is much faster than the rate 
we have named. In the United States of America, it 
doubles about every thirty years, which is nearly the 
rate at which the Jews increased during their sojourn 
in Egypt, and is more than four times as rapid as the 
previous general average : the farther we look back, the 
more slowly the people increased; hence, before the 
flood we should not estimate the period required for 
the duplication of numbers at less than 150 years ; 
but for greater safety, take the rate at which they have 
increased since the flood, and we shall find, that at the 
time of the general deluge, there were only about ten or 
fifteen thousand inhabitants ! all told ! or, if we say 
one hundred years (which is nearly forty-two per cent, 
per term faster than it increased from the flood to the 
present day.) it will not amount to eight hundred and 
seventy-five thousand; not half as many as are now 
in Pennsylvania, — and about double the present po- 
pulation of the city and county of Philadelphia: — 
or even if it had been possible, that under all disad- 
vantages, the duplication could have taken place in 
seventy-five years, which is nearly twice as fast as the 
inhabitants of the whole earth have increased since 
the flood, still, in eighteen hundred or two thousand 
years, they would only amount to about the present 
number of inhabitants in Great Britain. The ground 
covered by the Mediterranean, is eight times the size 
of Great Britain ; so that, under any view of the case, 
it was quite large enough to accommodate all those 
who were living: at that time. 

o 



69 

Submarine explorations, various nautical experi- 
ments and frequent soundings, have demonstrated, that 
for a vast depth below the present surface of the 
Ocean, the bottom consists of hills and valleys, moun- 
tains and plains, very much like the face of the land 
above water : this and other considerations lead us to 
believe, that prior to the Deluge, that portion now 
covered by the Mediterranean sea was a broad rolling 
upland, with a wide navigable river, or narrow shallow 
sea, running along the centre. 

Noah resided near Jaffa, ("the oldest city in the 
world.") It appears he knew how to raise grapes and 
make wine; the latter always has been a merchantable 
article among frail men. When he went to the coast 
of this antediluvian sea (which was not far from Jaffa,) 
to dispose of the surplus products of his land or flocks, 
he there saw ships afloat ; and there he found ship- 
yards, and saw how shipwrights put their boats toge- 
ther. 

Although the ark was the largest, it was not the 
first vessel that ever floated : this is evident from the 
directions he received ; otherwise, not only dimensions, 
but shape and construction^ would have been described 
to him. The whole tenor of the orders given, show 
that Noah was familiar with the art and mystery of 
ship building. 

It may be thought, if others had ships, some besides 
Noah and his family, would have saved themselves by 
taking refuge therein. They could not have done so; 
for the following reasons : — they did not believe the 



70 

flood was coming. Why should they ? inasmuch as 
they did not understand, much less believe, that "the 
windows of heaven" w T ere to be opened, or the bottom 
of the great deep broken up ! How could they, unless 
some one taught them? Who was to do this? Noah 
himself, does not appear to have been initiated into 
the modus operandi, further than that God told him he 
would " bring a flood of waters upon the Earth/' — 
but how, or from whence, he was not informed. If 
we, who have heard and read thereof, and can at all 
times see the results, imprinted upon the crust of the 
Earth, are still sceptical, it is not surprising that the 
people of those days, who had never seen, heard or 
read of such a thing, should also be sceptical, and 
consider the aged prophet as " demented," or " quite 
in his dotage. 11 

The vessels of that day being intended for limited 
traffic on a small and tranquil sea, were no doubt, di- 
minutive and unable to withstand the commotion of 
the waters. It is uncertain whether one of our largest 
seventy-four gun ships, could have survived such ele- 
mental strife ! We appeal to every nautical comman- 
der, whether he would be willing to risk his ship in 
such a storm, followed by such a tornado; which to- 
gether formed one continued tempest or hurricane for 
more than ten months ; with unknown rocks, shoals 
and islands, continually rising from the bottom of the 
sea! Neither is it probable, that any of those antedi- 
luvians had twelve months' provisions, fuel and cloth- 



71 

ing on board their little vessels, all of which, proba- 
bly, foundered during the first forty days. 

No human wisdom could have anticipated such a 
catastrophe ; nothing short of Divine prescience could 
foretel what was about to happen, nor what sized ves- 
sel would be necessary for such an emergency. 

It has been asserted, that " the preserving of eight 
persons for seed wherewith to replenish the Earth, is 
evidence of a diminution of power, otherwise the 
whole would have been destroyed, and the work of 
Creation begun de novo /'' 

This insulting, not to say blasphemous and contemp- 
tuous expression, is as devoid of sound philosophy, as 
it is of morality. The objector forgetting that, at the 
Creation, circumstances were very different from what 
they were at the Deluge; the former, producing spon- 
taneously, animal and vegetable life in abundance, 
which could not have been the case, to the same ex- 
tent, at the latter epoch. 

It has been asked, — rt if it required five months for 
the water to descend, how could it have been carried 
up in one day ? 

There is no difficulty in that ; for the water all de- 
scended at one place, attracted to a particular spot, by 
the first upheaval of the crust of the Earth, or other 
local circumstance; whereas, the ascension took place 
from the whole circumference, which at the lowest com- 
putation, would be one hundred thousand times greater 
in the ascension than in the descent : for example, 
suppose the body of falling water to have been half a 



72 

mile, or a mile in diameter, and that the evaporation 
was only from a belt five miles wide, then, as the 
Earth is about 24,000 miles in circumference, it would 
give an area of 120,000 miles from which the steam 
ascended ; but as it is probable it arose more or less 
from all parts of the surface of the heated globe, we 
can understand how as much vapor could be carried 
up in a few hours, as would require .five months to re- 
turn in a single column. 

According to the Espyan theory, there are upward 
columns in the atmosphere at this time, which cause 
our great storms ; so, at the Deluge, this upward co- 
lumn of steam, might have been one cause of the 
greatest rain that has ever occurred. 

The dew-point, so ably experimented upon by Dr. 
Daiton and Gay Lusac, was then far above the atmo- 
sphere, and even above the firmament spoken of by 
Moses, and could not have arrested the heated vapor 
in its upward career. 

As the waters of the flood were only twenty-eight 
feet deep, it may be supposed, that many of the trees 
would not have been covered, and that there the 
birds of the air, and mariners, might have resorted 
and sustained themselves upon fish and such vegeta- 
bles and animals as floated past them, This could 
not have been; for, it was not merely a great rain and 
a tremendous cataract of water, but a change of level 
also, that caused the flood — the habitable portion sank, 
and that which had previously been submerged then 
arose. So the trees and all who took shelter on them 



73 

went down, " to be seen of men no more." Or had 
any solitary spots escaped so far, as to leave the tops 
of some of the trees above the water, the violence of 
the wind and waves would have caused them to sway 
% to and fro, until they were broken off and destroyed: 
— there was no shelter there! independent of all these 
considerations, the great length of time that " the 
waters prevailed over the Earth," was sufficient to 
prevent such a lodgment. 

We have seen that other portions of land not very 
far distant from the Mediterranean are, at this day, 
1300 feet below the surface of that sea; consequently, 
it need not have required much sinking of part of 
the Earth's surface to account for present appear- 
ances, especially if the other portions rose in pro- 
portion. 

The probability is that our first estimate as to popu- 
pulation is nearly right ; if so, there were within what 
is now the Mediterranean Sea, at least sixty-five 
square miles of arable land for every inhabitant, man, 
woman and child ! Far more than sufficient for their 
support and accommodation, whether their habits were 
mechanical, commercial, agricultural, pastoral, preda- 
tory or nomadic. 

From what is known of the number of inhabitants 
now upon this globe, with their present rate of in- 
crease, the Biblical history must be nearly correct ; 
for, by reversing the operation, that is, deducting one- 
half every one hundred and forty- two and a half years, 
it will bring us down to the eight persons (Noah's 

K 



74 

family,) in about four thousand years. We know they 
are increasing much faster at present, than they then 
did, but the circumstances by which they were for- 
merly surrounded, would explain how they were pre- 
vented from increasing so rapidly at first. Had they* 
multiplied as fast from the commencement as at the^ 
present time, it would bring the Deluge within the 
period of authentic profane history; which is proof 
that the Deluge could not have occurred at a period 
much short of four thousand years ago ; and that for- 
merly the ratio of increase was less than it is at this 
day. 

We have already shown that the flood could not 
have been much farther back than that, or else we 
should now be overstocked with people ; so that the 
Mosaical Chronology cannot he very wide of the mark. 
The disintegration and decay of rocks, forming the 
soil of the Earth, the abrasion by water, &c, all indi- 
cate a period not very distant from that derived from 
the books of Moses. 

Admitting, therefore, that the Scripture Chronology 
is nearly right, we find it was less than two thousand 
years from the Creation to the Deluge, in which case, 
as we have already shown, the inhabitants could not 
have been very numerous. 

In order to ascertain more clearly whether the ante- 
diluvians, spoken of by Moses, were numerous nations, 
or only one large family, let us see who some of them 
were, — when they lived, and when they died. This 
will lower our ideas of their " vast numbers. ,y 



75 

There were living at one and the same time [anno 
mundi 929,] the following persons, namely : — -Adam, 
Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Me 
thuselah, and Lamech (the father of Noah :) so Adam 
saw his direct descendants to the eighth generation 
inclusive ! 

Noah's father was sixty-one years old when Adam 
died, and therefore might have learned the story of the 
Creation from our first progenitor, who had talked 
with the Creator himself. 

When Noah was born, the following patriarchal 
characters were living, to wit: — Enos, the grandson 
of Adam ; Cainan, the great grandson, — Mahalaleel, 
the great-great grandson, — Jared, the great-great grand 
father of Noah, and the fifth descendant in a direct 
line from Adam, (Enoch the great grandfather of 
Noah having been previously translated,) Methuse- 
lah, the grandfather of Noah, — and Lamech, Noah's 
father: these six individuals were all living in the 
time of Adam ! The youngest of them Lamech, 
( Noah's father,) being what at this day would be called 
"an old man" when Adam died. 

As the intensely interesting account of the Creation 
must have been current among intelligent persons of 
that day, no doubt all of these patriarchs heard it 
from their common ancestor Adam, and communi- 
cated the same to their descendant Noah, who was 
89 years old when Enos died, 184 when Cainan died, 
234 when Mahalaleel died, 366 when Jared died, 595 
when his father Lamech died, and 599 years old when 



76 

his grandfather Methusaleh, died. Noah lived after 
the Flood 350 years; and until Abram was 61 years 
of age. Abraham lived until Isaac was 75 (Jacob 
then being 15) years of age: so that Abraham could 
have repeated to Jacob what he had received from 
Noah, not only what had been told Noah by those 
who had conversed with Adam as to the Creation, but 
also what Noah had himself seen as to the flood. 
Shem (one of the sons of Noah,) who was living and 
married before the flood, lived 502 years after the 
flood, and died at the age of 600 years. Jacob being 
then 53 years old, could have learned from him what 
Methusaleh, Lamech and others, who had seen 
Adam, had told him as to the Creation, and what he 
had himself seen of the flood ! Jacob lived until 
Joseph was 54 years of age, and thus could, and no 
doubt did, communicate to him what he had learned 
from Shem, and from his grand father Abraham. 
Joseph lived 56 years after the death of his father, 
and about 279 before Moses, during which time the 
Israelites abode in Egypt as an organized community, 
whose Elders could and probably did, receive from 
Joseph and transmit these astonishing accounts to 
Moses, the great law-giver of Israel, who wrote them 
in a book for a perpetual remembrance. 

We are aware that this sojourn has sometimes been 
calculated from the time Abram left Haran, or soon 
after (when that patriarch went down into Egypt;) 
this would leave only 53 years between Joseph and 
Moses ! But on the other hand, it would allow only 



77 

204 years for the children of Israel to remain in 
Egypt, and in which to increase from less than one 
hundred to about three millions ! An increase, more 
than twice as rapid as that of the United States at 
this time ! We therefore take the Bible account to 
stand thus : — 

Joseph was 17 years old when sold. 

Served Potiphar 11 
; * in prison 2 



Making him 
Add 

it 

Therefore 
Joseph lived 



30 vears of age when he stood before Pharaoh. 
7 years of plenty. 
2 years thereafter the Jews entered Egypt. 



39 was Joseph's age when Jacob arrived. 
71 years thereafter. 



110 Joseph's age when he died. 



Moses was 80 years old when he spoke officially 

to' Pharaoh. 
The Children of Israel sojourned in Egypt 430 years 
(Exodus xii. 40, 41.) 
Deduct 71 for Joseph, i making 151 

80 for Moses. J 

Between Joseph and Moses, 279 years. 



It will be observed that we speak of the patriarchs 
in the direct line of primogeniture, but no doubt there 
were many other persons equally conversant with the 
subject, who, belonging to collateral branches, are not 
named (or only incidentally so,) some of whom very 
probably lived until the death of Ephraim and Manas- 
seh, or even later ; and it is possible, some of them until 
Moses fled from Egypt, and thus could have commu- 



78 

nicated the marvellous stories of the Creation and 
Deluge to Moses himself: but we have no evidence 
of that, farther than the testimony which Jacob when 
130. years old, bore before Pharaoh, when he said, 
" few and evil have the days of the years of my life 
been, and have not attained unto the days of the years 
of the life of my fathers ;" from which it may be in- 
ferred, that the brothers, cousins and other relations 
of those we have heretofore named, belonged to a long- 
lived race, and no doubt partook of the longevity of 
the original stock, and if so, that it would not be 
straining a point, to conclude that some who had con- 
versed with Shem, Ham or Japhet, might have lived 
to converse with Moses. 

We have already seen that Shem lived 502 years 
after the flood, and until Jacob was 53 years old : if a 
man, born 70 years before the death of Shem, had 
lived to be as old as Shem, that person would have 
lived until Moses was more than one hundred years 
old ! we can thus see how it might have been possible 
for Moses to receive the account of the Creation and 
the Flood, without the intervention of the Elders of 
Israel or the Magicians of Egypt, although it is pro- 
bable that he also received the information from them. 
For Joseph being prime minister, and upon intimate 
terms of social intercourse with the Magi, the learned 
men of Egypt* no doubt communicated to them the 
interesting account of the Creation and Delusre re- 
ceived by him from his father ; and as Moses, by com- 
mand of Pharoah's daughter, was instructed in all the 



79 

learning of the Egyptians, he might have learned the? 
story in that way. 

It is not necessary at present, to affirm or deny the 
divine inspiration of Moses ; our object being to show, 
independent of all supernatural aid, that the facts re- 
lative to the Creation and Deluge as recorded by 
Moses were most probably true, or at least perfectly 
consistent with reason and known facts. 

We have heard many theories and suppositions as 
to the Creation and Deluge, and (speaking as a philo- 
sopher, and not as a theologian,) we have never found 
any, differing from the Mosaic account, which ap- 
peared so reasonable and probable as that contained in 
the Scriptures of tfufh. 

As a matter of curiosity, forming a contrast to the 
rational account contained in the Bible, we will men- 
tion a few theories of philosophers and others, respect- 
ing the formation of the Universe, or of certain parts 
thereof. 

" It was the opinion of Zenophanes, Strabo and 
others, that the earth and the whole system of the Uni- 
verse was the Deity himself." 

"Some philosophers inculcated the famous numerical 
system of the monad, diad and triad; and by means 
of this sacred mythological trinity, elucidated the 
formation of the world, and the secrets of nature. 
Others adhered to the mathematical system of squares 
and triangles; the cube, the pyramid, the sphere, &c, 
while some maintained the great elementary theory, 
which refers the construction of our globe and all it 



80 

contains, to the combinations of the four elements, 
air, earth, fire and water, with the assistance of a fifths 
the immaterial and vivifying principle." 

The comparatively modern doctrine of phlogiston 
has long since been abandoned ; and the ancient re- 
cord kept by the Brahmins, in the pages of their in- 
spired Shastah, about the transformation of the angel, 
is too absurd to be quoted. 

Buffon conjectures, that this earth was originally a 
globe of liquid fire, struck from the body of the sun, 
by means of a comet, as a spark is produced by the 
collision of flint and steel ; that at first it was sur- 
rounded by gross vapors, which, cooling and con- 
densing, in process of time, constituted, according to 
their densities, earth, water, and air ; which gradually 
arranged themselves according to their respective 
gravities, round the burning mass that formed their 
centre. Excepting the supposition of the comet 
striking the sun, and splitting off a world, Buffon's 
theory approximates to the concurrent opinion of phi- 
losophers of the present day, is much nearer the truth 
than any of his profane competitors, and can scarcely 
be said to contradict the sacred writers 

"Darwin, in accounting for the origin of the world, 
supposes that the mass of chaos suddenly exploded, 
like a barrel of gunpowder, and in that act, exploded 
the sun, which, in its flight, by a similar convulsion 
exploded the earth, which in like manner exploded the 
moon ; and thus, by a chain of explosions, the whole 



81 

i 

^solar system was produced, and set in regular motion." 
This notion itself was soon exploded. 

We might add many others ; and were we not fear- 
ful of wearying the reader, we would like to give a 
synopsis of some beautiful, although fanciful ac- 
counts, furnished by " spiritualists;" but perhaps 
the foregoing will be sufficient to show the discre- 
pancies into which philosophers have fallen, when 
differing from the Mosaical account. 

Nor is it surprising that they should fail to account 
for the origin, which they had not seen, when they 
could not agree as to the motion of the celestial 
bodies, which they had seen. 

" Ptolemy, who has given his name to the earliest 
known system, supposed the earth to be at rest in the 
centre of the Universe, and all other heavenly bodies 
to revolve around the earth." 

The Egyptians observed that Mercury and Venus 
were never at a great distance from the sun, and there- 
fore supposed they moved around it, as secondary 
planets move round their primaries, whilst with it they 
were carried round the earth. 

" The Babylonians, and afterwards Pythagoras, 
(about 500 years before the Christian era,) are said to 
have considered the Earth a planet, revolving round 
the sun, like the other planets. This knowledge of 
the true solar system was very soon lost, and was not 
revived till about the middle of the sixteenth century. 
Copernicus, from whom the true system is called Co- 

L 



82 

pcrnican, supposed the earth to turn on its axis every 
day, and to revolve round the sun every year." 

Near the same time, Tycho Brahe, a Danish noble- 
man, and an able astronomer, rejected the Copernican 
theory, and supposed the earth immovable in the 
centre of the orbits of the sun and moon, without any 
rotation on its axis; but made the sun the centre of 
the orbits of all the other planets, which therefore 
revolved with the sun around the earth. 

Now, if philosophers could not agree as to what 
was continually passing before their eyes, no wonder 
they could not unite upon any theory of Creation; 
which is a subject not referable to occular demon- 
stration. 



83 



CHAPTER VI. 

u So from the first eternal order ran, 
And creature link'd to creature, man to man. 
Whate'er of life all-quick'ning aether keeps, 
Or breathes thro' air, or shoots beneath the deepi, 
Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feeds 
The vital flame, and swells the genial seeds." 



Having shown that the antediluvians were few, and 
occupied only a small space, we infer they were ac- 
quainted with but a small number of birds, beasts and 
creeping things. There could not have been many 
different kinds of animals (and only such as were 
indigenous to the soil and climate,) to answer all ne- 
cessary purposes for ten or fifteen thousand people . — 
True, the Scripture speaks of specimens of every 
kind (then upon the earth,) but from what has already 
been stated, the number of kinds were not very great, 
and probably the individual animals of the few kinds 
they had, were not numerous ; for it was not until after 
the flood, that they were given to man for food : 

" On Noah, and in him on all mankind, 
The charter was conferred by which we hold 
The flesh of animals in fee, and claim, 
O'er all we feed on, power of life and death."* 

* "And God bleDsed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, * * * 
"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you ; even as the green 

herb have I given you all things. 

" But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall y not eat." 

— Genetis, ix. 1, 3, 4. 



84 

So when Noah saw a variety of beasts, birds and 
creeping things, coming on board his ark ; he might 
have believed and honestly reported to his descen- 
dants, that he had with him all manner of beasts and 
creeping things; and no doubt so he had; but they 
were only specimens of such as were then upon the 
earth, that is, on a very small part of what is now 
known as the earth; — a part which, if not identi- 
cal with, certainly was not larger than the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. 

The ark was about 550 feet long, 91 feet 8 inches 
wide, and 55 feet high; containing three stories of 
nearly eighteen feet each. The whole superficial con- 
tent of the floors of the ark, was about one hundred 
and fifty thousand square feet; — sufficient to hold more 
than seven thousand oxen standing close together, or 

3750 as we often distribute them in our stables ; — 

i 

which, as the large animals were not of many differ- 
ent kinds, and of those, most were only received in 
pairs, was amply sufEcient to hold specimens of all 
those then on the habitable globe ; and as the stories 
were very high, Noah (who was a farmer,) could have 
no difficulty in storing the necessary provender be- 
tween the cattle and the ceiling, had it been requisite 
so to do. 

The burthen of the ark was between forty and fifty 
thousand tons, as we compute the tonnage of ships at 
the present day. 

" A first rate man-of-war is between twenty-two and 
twenty-three hundred tons, and consequently, the ark 



85 

had a capacity of stowage equal to eighteen cr twenty 
of the largest ships now in use; it might therefore 
have carried more than twenty thousand men, with 
provisions for six months, besides the weight of two 
thousand cannons, and other necessary equipments 
and military stores for such an armament. Can it be 
doubtful, therefore, whether this vessel had a sufficient 
capacity to contain eight persons and about 200 or 250 
pairs of four-footed beasts, a number, to which, ac- 
cording to BufTon, all the various distinct species may 
be reduced, together with pairs of such fowls, reptiles 
and creeping things only, as cannot live under water, 
and provisions for all, even for a year?" 

From the preceding data, we conclude that the ante- 
diluvians dwelt on the only part of the earth that was 
then fit for the habitation of man. Neither the Bible, 
nor that book to which sceptics so often refer — " the 
booh of geology," gives any information inconsistent 
with this conclusion, or with the supposition that the 
portion not thus occupied was either a level plain, a 
low marsh or swamp, or shallow w~ater. 

The difficulty which remains to be considered is, 
that of feeding these animals after they left the ark. 
Terrene vegetables submerged for ten or eleven 
months would be nearly all destroyed : but as soon as 
the waters left the upland, which they did in many 
instances before Noah left the ark, the grass in that 
warm climate would spring up, and in a short time 
there would be pasture enough and to spare. 

The flood commenced on the seventeenth day of the 



S6 

second month, in the six hundredth year of Noah's 
life. Five months thereafter, the ark rested on Mount 
Ararat; at which time the rain abated, but did not 
entirely cease: according to the text — "the waters 
assuage!, the fountains also of the deep and the win- 
dows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven 
was restrained" (not stopped,) that is, the rain was 
checked, or reduced as to time and quantity. 

On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the 
mountains were seen. — In about a month and a half 
from that time, the dove returned with an olive leaf. 
On the first day of the next year, "Noah removed 
the covering of the ark, and looked; and behold the 
face of the earth was dry ;" and on the twenty-seventh 
day of the second month, he and all that were with him 
left the ark ; so that, from the first of the tenth month, 
to the first day of the following year, (being three 
months,) certain portions of the earth in the vicinity 
of the ark, and probably elsewhere, were above water, 
and from that time until Noah left the ark, say one 
month and twenty-seven days, " the face of the ground 
was dry H Making together a period of four months 
and twenty -seven days; thus, there was plenty of 
time for a good crop of grass and vegetables, before 
the " Master" of the ark landed his living cargo. 

The text above quoted shows that the rain, the 
fountains of the deep, and the windows of heaven, were 
three distinct things, and that their product was the 
waters which were afterwards " assuaged," and which 
" returned from off the earth continually ;" that is ; a 



87 

part, in obedience to the law of gravitation, had rushed 
into the depressions of which we have heretofore 
spoken, and thus lessened the quantity, on what was 
about to become the land-surface of the globe. 

For more easy reference, we have made the fol- 
lowing 

ABSTRACT, 

From the Mosaical Account. 

On the 17th day of the 2d month, in the six hun- 
dredth year of Noah's life, it commenced 
raining; whereupon Noah with his family 
entered the ark. The waters prevailed upon 
the Earth for 150 days—say 5 months; that 
is, until the 

17th day of the 7th month of that year; on which 
day the ark rested on Mount Ararat. At 
the same time, the fountains of the deep and 
the windows of heaven were " stopped" and 
the rain "restrained." 

1st day of the 10th month of the same year, the 
tops of the mountains were seen. 

11th day of the 11th month. — The Raven was sent 
out, but did not return. On the same day, 
Noah sent out a dove, which returned; for 
the waters were on the face of the whole 
earth, (mountains excepted;) that is, upon 
all that was then visible 1o the naked eye 
from that point of observation. 



88 

18th of the same month. The dove was again sent 
out, and returned with an olive leaf. 

25th, (seven days later ) She was sent out again, 
and did not return. This was on the 25th of 
the 11th month, in the six hundredth year of 
Noah. 

On the 1st day of the 1st month, in his six hundred 
and first year, " Noah removed the covering 
of the ark, and looked, and behold the face 
of the ground was dry." 

27th day of the 2d month, (being 1 month 27 days 
thereafter,) Noah and his family, and every 
beast and every fowl and whatsoever creepeth, 
went forth out of the ark. 

RECAPITULATION. 

The -waters prevailed for 5 months — 

Mountain tops first seen, 2 mos. 13 days after the windows of heaven wera 
stopped. 

Say, 7 mos. 13 days. 

Waters remained for 1 mo. 10 days longer. 



Making 8 mo. 23 days. 

Dove returned with olive leaf, 7 days. 

Waters abating, 9 months, 

Dove sent out again, and did not return, 7 days. 

Waters abated, 9 months 7 days. 

The ark uncovered, and the ground found dry, 1 month 5 days. 



End of the flood, 10 mos. 12 days. 

Debarkation, 1 mo. 27 days. 



End of the voyage. 12 mos. 9 days. 



Baron Humbold states that, after the destruction of 
a large portion of the inhabitants of Cumana, in South 



89 

America, by an earthquake in 1767, an extraordinary 
fertility ensued, in consequence of the rain which had 
accompanied the convulsion. 

This is one of numerous cases on record where great 
convulsions of nature produced rain. Perhaps it may 
not be necessary to detain' the reader with a recital of 
other instances. 

As the great elevations were caused by land pre- 
viously covered with shallow water having been pro- 
truded from the "sea" (not ocean) by the internal 
forces, the marine vegetation was there, either in a green 
or partially dried state, on which the herbivori could 
subsist until the grass grew. 

We have already shown that there was a period of 
from three to five months allowed by the Creator, for 
the grass to grow, before he permitted man or beast to 
leave the ark : in either case there could not have been 
a deficiency of food. As to the carnivorous animals, 
it was not quite so important to them; the chief dif- 
ference being, whether their victims should be in full 
flesh, or lean and ill-favored, — especially as they had 
their choice of fish or flesh, as will be shown presently. 

Every chemist, every farmer, every intelligent per- 
son who has ever resided in the country, can under- 
stand, that much of this land, thus protruded from the 
water, must have been extremely feitile, and that all 
doubts on that score are futile and imaginary. 

Whether Noah kept a regular record of events in 
the ark, we know not; if he did, it has been lost; cer- 
tainly it has not been handed down to us ; and there- 

M 



90 

fore, we cannot tell all that took place on board his 
vessel during that cruise upon a boundless ocean, — 
the first and the last of the kind that ever was, or ever 
will be, on this earth ! Sceptics avail themselves of 
this omission, and say, " the carnivorous animals 
would have eaten up all those which were gramini- 
vorous, and Noah and his family too, during the year 
and nine days they were in the ark;" whereas, on the 
contrary, Noah in obedience to the Divine command, 
made proper and ample provision even for them ; as 
is sufficiently proved by the fact, that they all came 
out alive at the end of the voyage. 

" And take unto thee of all food that is eaten, and 
thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food 
for thee, and for them. 

" Thus did Noah ; according to all that God com- 
manded him, so did he." 

It is evident they must have had plenty of provi- 
sions, for they remained on board, for nearly two 
months after " the waters were dried up from off the 
Earth;" which they would not have done, had they 
been on short allowance. 

Mankind were vegetarians before the flood ; and 
even at the present day a majority do not make daily 
use of animal food : — in England and the United 
States the reverse is the case; but even here, already 
many persons, from physiological, economical, humane 
or religious reasons, refrain from eating flesh, and the 
same motives will hereafter greatly increase their 
numbers. The two reasons last mentioned, cannot 



91 

be maintained upon sound principles, but the others 
are incontrovertible and will prevail, to a great extent. 

Were the supply of animal food to fail, or from 
any cause become scarce, it would require several years 
to raise a supply ; whereas, cereals and vegetables are 
capable of any required increase in a single season, 
which is an important consideration with philanthro- 
pists, statesmen and agriculturalists. 

That this change of diet will have a powerful, and 
probably beneficial, effect upon the race, scarcely ad- 
mits of doubt. 

There are those who scruple the right of man to 
exterminate the inferior animals to make room for 
himself, and who favor the sentiment so beautifully 
'expressed by Goldsmith's Hermit : 

" No flocks that range the valley free, 
To slaughter I condemn ; 
Taught by that Power that pities me, 
I learn to pity them." 

Some sects in the East not only refuse to kill ver- 
min, but carry their misgivings so far as even to nou- 
rish and sustain them ! None, however, need hesi- 
tate upon that point, for 

"The sum is this. If man's convenience, health, - 
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims 
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.'' 

So says Cowper, than whom, no one had a stronger 
sympathy for the wrongs, or a greater regard for the 
rights of the irrational portion of Creation. 



92 

It has moreover been objected, that the carnivori, on 
coming out of the ark, would have eaten up and de- 
stroyed ihe herbivori in a few days, and then starved 
to death! There was no danger of that ; for, as the 
waters retired, no doubt abundance of fish were left 
on the land, affording a plentiful repast; and as those 
fish which failed to escape into the ocean, would, as far 
as practicable, follow the water into the shallow ponds, 
which were afterwards dried by evaporation, the sup- 
ply of this kind of food might have been kept up for 
weeks and months, and even for years; at any rate 
until there was a stock of land animals from natural 
increase ; thus forming one grand universal Lent : and 
this may have been the reason why fishes were not in- 
cluded in the fiat of instantaneous destruction. It is 
probable there were nearly as many fish destroyed, in 
consequence of the Deluge, as of land animals, and 
therefore the charge of " injustice and partiality in 
favor of one class of animals," does not seem to be 
well sustained. 

Speculative philosophers, (sometimes erroneously 
called infidels and atheists.) reject the Bible, because 
they think "it contradicts itself;" — that is, they can 
point to some part of that book, written by one man, 
which they say, " contradicts some other part ; " writ- 
ten by another man. These objections have been an- 
swered by the defenders of the Bible reminding them, 
that these books, written by different men, at different 
times and under various circumstances, after having 
been collated, were translated into numerous Ian- 



93 

ffuao-es, that our version is a translation of a translation, 
and that all modern editions are copies of copies ; 
consequently, allowance must be made for the inaccu- 
racy of the translators and transcribers; also, for the 
change in the meaning of words, which occasionally 
takes place in all living languages; and also for the 
construction which may sometimes be given by the 
division of the Bible into chapters and verses.* 

The answer is about as good as the objection — 
neither of them very satisfactory. If discrepancy be- 
tween writers of the same faith, is fatal to the general 
creed, then the objectors themselves are liable to many 
such charges. 

One sceptic finds fault because the Bible ac- 

* Portions of the Bible were originally written in Chaldaic. The two princi- 
pal versions are, the Protestant, translated from the Hebrew and Greek (by 
order of King James,) by 47 learned Divines in England, from 1G08 to 1611, and 
compared with many older versions ; and the Douay Bible, (Roman Catholic,) 
compiled by three or four professors of the College of Douay and Ilheims, 
in 1582 and 1609, from the Latin translation made more than 1400 years ago, 
which thus is a translation of a translation. 

The editions now in use, are chiefly copies taken from copies of the above- 
mentioned versions. It is not pretended by any body, that all who have been 
engaged in making these copies, v^ere " inspired of the Holy Ghost ;" conse- 
quently, as all human works are more or less imperfect, typographical and cle- 
rical errors may have been unintentionally admitted : whether they materially 
affect the meaning, theologians may decide. 

Formerly, punctuation was not the province of the author, but of the critic, or 
grammarian : how this was with the Bible, we do not remember to have heard; 
but the division into small portions was not the work of the sacred writers. 
The Chapters were invented by Hugo de Saw-to (Jaro, a Romish Cardinal, who 
lived in the thirteenth century. Verses, in the Hebrew Bible, were first divised 
by a Jewish Teacher, named Athias, in the year 1661. The New Testament 
was divided into verses by a Frenchman, named Robert Stevens, in 1545. 



94 

count looks as if the maker had blotted all out at the 
time of the Deluge, and began anew. Another, ridi- 
' cules that same account, because eight persons were 
u preserved for seed," and that the work was not 
" begun de novo.'" Others object, because " the wri- 
ters of different parts of the Bible, say the same things;" 
this, our sceptics call plagiarism. So it appears they 
are hard to please. 

Some scientific persons have thought the world 
could not have been, or at any rate, raws not created in 
six days of twenty -four hours each, but that the term 
"nom" translated into our language by the word " day" 
must have meant a long indefinite period of time, say 
"a thousand years or more," and "it required six 
thousand years at least to form the world!" If we 
take their interpretation and read one thousand years, 
whenever Moses in that account says one day, then, it 
rained forty thousand years at the Deluge ! the win- 
dows of heaven continued to pour down torrents of 
water upon the earth for one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand years ! ! and the world was covered by water 
for more than two hundred and fifty thousand years ! ! I 
During all which time, Noah and his family, and all 
animals remained alive in the ark ! — Which will you 
believe ? 

" "With the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and 
a thousand years as one day" — 

" in whose sight, 



Slow circling ages are as transient days ;" 



95 

whereas, with man " what is gained in power is lost 
in time" and this makes it difficult (for some) to con- 
ceive how it could be different under any circum- 
stances. 

" So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems, 
To span omnipotence, and measure might 
That knows no measure, by the scanty rule 
And standard of his own — that is to-day, 
And ie not, ere to-morrow'i sun goes down," 



96 



CHAPTER VII. 

m Look ronnd our 'world — behold the chain of love 

Combining all below and all above : 

See plastic nature working to this end ; 

The single atoms each to other tend ; 
- Attract, attracted to, the nest in place 

Formed and impeli'd its neighbor to embrace ; 

See matter, next, with various life endued, 

Press to one centre still — the general good !" 
***** 

We have seen how light might have been, and pro- 
bably was created on the first day — and how the waters 
were separated, and the firmament established on the 
second day. 

Vegetables were created on the third day. At the 
" beginning" the Creator established a fundamental 
law, unerring as those of affinities (definite propor- 
tions) in chemistry, and gravitation in philosophy, viz : 
that certain salts, under certain circumstances of heat, 
air, earth, light, moisture, electricity, &c., should pro- 
duce certain kinds of plants. — Thus it is, in New 
Jersey sometimes, when we cut down a pine forest, 
oaks spring up ; and after a great lapse of time, when 
the oaks are cut down, pines again appear! Whilst 
the oaks are growing, the salts suitable for the produc- 
tion or stimulation of pine are accumulating, and the 
oaks are absorbing from the soil that peculiar alkali 
or salt best adapted to the production of oaks ; so that, 



97 

when the oaks are removed, there is a preponderance 
of the pine-producing acidulating salts : whereupon 
the pines immediately spring up and grow, to the ex- 
clusion of the oaks ; and, in a similar manner, whilst 
the pines are growing, the ground is being prepared 
for the production of oaks. Some have supposed that 
the acorns remained buried near the surface of the 
ground all the time the pines were growing : but that 
is not likely, as they would decay, or be eaten by 
squirrels or other animals, long before the pines ar- 
rived at maturity. True, we have heard of the great 
vitality of seeds : it is said that wheat, taken from an 
Egyptian Mummy embalmed 2000 years ago, has 
been sown and found to germinate and produce fruit! 
but in that case, it had been excluded from the air, 
moisture, &c, to all of which, the acorn would be ex- 
posed, and therefore would decay. 

Take a quantity of loam (composed principally of 
feldspar and silex,) from many feet below the surface, 
wash it, dry it, sift it, and then heat it to a degree suf 
ficientto destroy vegetable life, (if any there remains,) 
after which, put it in a box, and place it upon the 
house-top, or in any other secure situation ; cover it 
with glass, and, by fine gauze, or in some other way 
that shall effectually prevent seeds from being intro- 
duced ; admit the air, keep it in the proper condition 
as to moisture, temperature, &c, and in process of 
time, you will find vegetation springing up in that 
soil. Gardeners assert that they can produce mush- 
rooms and other fungi without seed. 

N 



98 

In like manner, the fundamental laws of the Crea- 
tor caused particles to adhere to, or combine with 
other like particles, and thus out of the gaseous or 
other matter existing in that vast portion of space 
known as our solar system, hardened, condensed, 
agglomerated or combined the materials which have 
successively formed the planets, including our earth ;* 
and this process is now going on, in other portions of 
space. The comets are believed to be matter under- 
going that formative process. 

" Geology has proved," says Chambers' Miscellany, 
" that at one period, there existed enormously abun- 
dant land vegetation, the ruins of which, carried into 
seas, and there sunk to the bottom, afterwards covered 
over by sand and mud-beds, became the substance 
which we now recognize as coal. 

" It may naturally excite surprise that the vegetable 
remains should have so completely changed their ap- 
parent character, and become black. Part of the 
marvel becomes clear to the simplest understanding, 
when we recall the familiar fact, that damp hay 

* A celebrated professor of Chemistry, in a rceent lecture upon " The his- 
tory of Creation, as taught by modern science, compared with the Mosaic ac- 
count,"' performed various experiments, showing how many things could hays 
been created as described by Moses. 

Assuming the gaseous origin of the earth, he produced intense light and heat 
by combinations of gases ; also, light of equal intensity, by electricity ; likewise, 
by admixtures of other gases, he obtained cold, sufficient to freeze quicksilver, 
and thus explained how the crust of the earth might have been formed by 
condensation, consolidation, precipitation, crystallization, &c. ; in short, it 
was an epitome of the phenomena described by Moses-, or in other words, Cnsa- 
Hon on a small scale I 



99 

thrown closely into a heap, gives out heat, and be- 
comes of a dark color. When a vegetable mass is ex- 
cluded from the air, and subjected to a great pressure, 
the result is mineral coal, which is of various charac- 
ter, according as the mass has been originally inter- 
mingled with sand, clay, or other earthy impurities. 

" On account of the change effected by mineraliza- 
tion, it is difficult to detect in coal the traces of a ve- 
getable structure ; but these can be made clear to all, 
«xcept in the highly bituminous coaking coal, by cut- 
ting or polishing it down into thin, transparent slices, 
when the microscope shows the fibres and cells plainly. 

"From distant, isolated specimens, found in the 
sandstones amidst the coal-beds, we discover the na- 
ture of the plants of this era. They are almost all of 
simple cellular structure, and such as exist with us in 
small forms, (horse tails, club mosses and ferns,) but 
advanced to an enormous magnitude. — These species 
were long since extinct. The vegetation was gene- 
rally such as now grows in clusters on tropical 
islands; but it must have been the result of a high 
temperature obtained otherwise than that of the tropical 
regions now, for the coal strata are found in the tempe- 
rate, and even the polar regions. 

il The conclusion, therefore, at which most geolo- 
gists have arrived is, that the earth, originally an in- 
candescent or highly heated mass, was gradually cooled 
down, until in the carboniferous period, it fostered a 
growth of terrestrial vegetation all over its surface, to 
which the existing jungles of the tropics are mere 
barrenness in comparison. This high and uniform 



100 

temperature, combined with, a greater proportion of 
carbonic acid gas in the atmosphere, would not only 
sustain a gigantic and prolific vegetation, but would 
create denser vapors, showers and rains, and these 
again gigantic rivers, periodical inundations, and 
deltas. Thus all the conditions for extensive deposits 
of wood in estuaries would arise from this high tem- 
perature, and every circumstance connected with the 
coal measures, points to such conditions." 

The " change in the apparent character" of mine- 
ralized carboniferous plants, as exhibited in anthracite 
or bituminous coal, is not more remarkable than that 
observed in the barilla of commerce, which is the pro- 
duct of a sea-weed by combustion and lixiviation. 
When thrown on the wharf from the ship or vessel in 
which it is imported, this article looks more like black 
stones or a mineral substance than like anything of a 
vegetable nature. 

Now, on the third day, the earth was just in that 
condition of heat, moisture, &c, to germinate plants, 
in obedience to the law which we have endeavored to 
explaiu : it is probable the germs might have been 
formed in the earth before the waters were drawn oif, 
(we see this along the shores of tide-water ponds, 
creeks and rivers,) and whoever has witnessed the 
rapid growth of vegetation in a tropical climate or 
even in a Russian summer, need feel at no loss to un- 
derstand how soon there would be enough for the ani- 
mals created three days thereafter. 

From some late experiments in England, it has 
been found that the galvanic fluid can cause a more 



101 

rapid development of vegetable growth, than we have 
ever before supposed to be possible. On the third day 
of the creation, the earth was in a condition far dif- 
ferent from the present, and it is not difficult to un- 
derstand how a rapid growth might have taken place, 
such as is not seen in the present day; nevertheless, 
within our own time and under all disadvantages, we 
have occasionally seen plants grow almost as rapidly 
as would be necessary under the circumstances al- 
luded to. We often hear of plants having grown at 
the rate of one inch in 24 hours ; at which rate the 
grass, reeds, &c, would have been three inches high 
before there were any animals to graze upon them. 

The solar system was created on the fourth day. 
As the earth had a " beginning," so had the sun, 
moon and stars. No doubt they were all produced, 
each in its proper time and place, in obedience to a 
general law of the Creator ; for, it is as easy for Al- 
mighty power to create a world or a sun, as an orange 
or a pea ! Magnitude, time and space, are nothing to 
him who is Omnipotent, — who fills immensity, and 
exists for all eternity. 

Birds and fishes were created on the fifth day. 
However some investigators may sneer at the Mosai- 
cal account, still, able philosophers, occasionally (al- 
though it may be unintentionally) bear testimony to 
its truth. 

One of the late and astonishing discoveries of mo- 
dern science is, that the birds of the air were formed 
originally out of the waters of the sea. By referring to 



102 

the first chapter of Genesis, we find Moses says the 
same thing. 

" And God said, let the waters bring forth abun- 
dantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowls that 
may fly above the earth in the open firmament of 
Heaven." 

" Which the waters brought forth abundantly, after 
his kind ; and God saw that it was good I"* 

Winged insects are sometimes thus produced at the 
present day. At first, they are a " creature that hath 
life" moving up and down in the water, but then there 
comes a time when they rise upon the surface and fly 
away. So it was on the fifth day of Creation — as 
swarms of insects now rise from the water* so then 
did whole flocks of birds arise from the sea in one and 
the same day. 

Mosquitos, notwithstanding the anathemas usually 
bestowed upon them, are interesting to the naturalist; 
showing as they do, to incredulous man, how tenants 
of the air can be produced out of water, and enabling 
him to understand and believe, that " the waters 

r * Modern philosophers have demonstrated that the interior of the Earth is 
one molten mass of liquid fire, or its equivalent ; they cannot exactly tell what : 
but they have satisfactorily proved, that whatever it is, there can be no doubt 
but that it is at an exceedingly high temperature, equal to, or far surpassing in 
its intensity, what is technically called a "white heat," which of course, is 
hotter than red hot iron ! This is a surprising and important discovery ; which 
like other really scientific discoveries, tends to prove the truth of the Bible : 
for the doctrine of internal heat is distinctly, although briefly, stated in the 
Book of Job ; the oldest book now extant: which says, 

" As for the Earth, out of it cometh bread ; and under it is turned up as it were 
fire." — Job. xxviii. 5. 



103 

brought forth abundantly the fowls that fly above the 
Earth, in the open firmament of Heaven." Or, they 
may be the result of a remnant, a weak solution, if 
we may be allowed so to speak, of the vivifying prin- 
ciple, which, in its pristine strength, and in obedience 
to the law of its nature, or in other words, the law of 
God, brought forth the larger animals, including man. 

This principle or power, which is of God, and for 
which, unfortunately, we have no proper name or 
term that will clearly designate it, has been called, 
electricity, galvanism, nervous power, vita] energy, 
living principle, life, and various other significant, but 
not very correct terms; and, although at this time ap- 
parently weak, it may, like the brain in sleep, be gather- 
ing power for future effort, and may yet arise, in obe- 
dience to the Divine law, " like a giant refreshed 
with wine," and, by another effort of uncommon 
energy, display to an astonished world a being supe- 
rior to man ! 

We know not whether such was the case when 
11 there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought 
quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, 
as it were, a day's journey on each side of the camp," 
to the depth of about 43 inches, (say three and a half 
feet,) and sufficient in quantity to feed the nation for 
a "whole month;" — until they became heartily tired 
of that kind of diet. This fall of birds was followed 
by " a very great plague," the consequence (physi- 
cally) of the sudden change of food, the surfeit, and 
the decomposition of the refuse. 



104 

If this vast number of quails did not come out of 
the sea, it is equally difficult to say where they did 
come from, in such condensed numbers, so contrary to 
the natural habit of those birds at the present day. 

Some modern philosophers assert, that they were 
not quails, but Snails, (Helix Pomacia, called in the 
German language, schnecken,) myriads of which, are 
said to be found in the desert at the present time — 
large and edible ; in either case it is equally wonderful, 
and tends to corroborate the theory we are endeavoring 
to explain. 

We will not produce the account of Keysler, F. R. S. 
of London, (a celebrated antiquary,) who alleges that 
this takes place periodically in a certain lake in the 
southeast part of Austria, because his story, by some, 
is supposed to be fabulous, or at least requires confir- 
mation. But we are not left to conjecture on this 
mode of producing winged animals ; — if two glass jars 
be partly filled with distilled water, and then hermeti- 
cally sealed and allowed to stand in a dark place of suit- 
able temperature, (a cellar for instance.) and if a galva- 
nic battery be so applied that a stream of electricity or 
galvanism passes constantly through one of those jars, 
in process of time it will be found that, in the jar to 
which the galvanic battery was applied, living ani- 
mals will be formed, perfect in organization and arti- 
culation, with feet, wings, bodies and other parts, as 
complete as those produced "in the natural way !" 
(although of a different species) — whilst the other jar 
will contain nothing but the distilled water ! 



105 

The Creator does nothing in vain — makes nothing 
that is useless. We have seen that the antediluvian 
habitable portion of the earth was small, and its inha- 
bitants and animals few. A large proportion of the 
animals which have been, or are now upon the earth, 
were not then needed, and therefore did not, nay, for 
obvious reasons, could not have existed in the condi- 
tion of things then extant; hence these must have 
been created since the flood? The probabilities are in 
favor of the hypothesis that there are new creations at 
this day, and that there will be others hereafter. If 
this be true, then, in that sense, has the creation taken 
thousands of years ; but this is not the sense in which 
it is understood by those who cavil at the Mosaical 
account. 

As there have been floods, since the Deluge, so have 
there been new Creations on this earth since the six 
days spoken of in Genesis : yes, there have been post- 
diluvian creations, both animal and vegetable ! We 
have already shown that forests have been thus newly 
created in New Jersey, alternately of oak and pine. 
That there have been creations of coal, subsequent to 
the primal creation, is evident from its vegetable 
origin ; there having been instances where one end of 
a log was wood, and the other end mineral coal ; 
which is conclusive as to origin. The obvious fact 
that extensive coal mines have been formed out of 
trees and tropical plants, which existed prior to the 
Deluge, does not militate against the idea of its crea- 
tion or conversion subsequent to the creation spoken 
o 



106 

of by Moses, any more than the fact of the Fowls of 
the air having been formed out of the waters of the sea, 
or the beasts of the earth made out of the dust. If 
coal was not created, because of its vegetable origin, 
then beasts and birds were not created, because of their 
terreous or aqueous origin. 

Beasts, cattle, creeping things, and (last though not 
least,) man, were created on the sixth day. 

11 And God said, let the earth bring forth the living 
creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, 
and beasts of the earth after his kind ; and it was so ;" 
that is to say, the earth brought them forth. 

We have seen how the vegetables were produced 
on the third day, in conformity with the fundamental 
law of the Creator, and how the sea brought forth the 
birds on the fifth day, in obedience to a similar law. 
Is it any more difficult to believe that the earth should 
produce beasts, than that the water should produce 
birds ? No ! not so much so ; and yet the manner in 
which birds were originally produced, is no longer 
doubted by well informed individuals, who keep them- 
selves posted up on all the discoveries in science an- 
cient and modern. Many recent instances have been 
known of some kinds of insects being produced from 
dirt ; at least when no other origin could be suggested. 
" In the beginning the spirit of God moved upon 
the face of the waters ;" — this must mean something — 
who knows but that it was the " quickening spirit" 
which was then infusing the germ of life, that was to 
be fully developed in the days of crea tion ? 



107 

*' See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, 
All matter quick, and bursting into birth ! 
Above, how high progressive life may go ; 
Around how wide ; how deep extend below ! 
Vast chain of being, which from God began, 
Nature's etherial, human, angel, man, 
Beasts, birds, fish, insects, what no eye can see, 
No glass can reach, from infinite to thee, 
From thee to nothing'' 

Admitting the organic law, that the gelatinous 
matter, which we often find on the sea shore, or 
some other material, under certain circumstances, 
operated upon by the galvanic fluid, &c, should pro- 
duce certain kinds of animals and creeping things, 
and .we see no difficulty in the development having 
taken place in one day : — for, by the operation of this 
law, it would be no more difficult to produce a mam- 
moth than a mouse — a man than a monkey — a million 
than a single individual — in a single day, than in " a 
thousand years." 

When we resolve men and other animals, and also 
plants into their ultimate constituents, we find them 
nearly identical ; so that, possibly, the application of 
more or less galvanism or electricity, might have been 
the means used to change the type of life from vege- 
table to animal, or from molusca to vertebrata ! from 
an oyster up to man. 

If this be true — if life, electricity and galvanism, be 
synonymous, or analogous, it has been suggested that 
we may therein discover a remedy for many diseases, 
the symptoms of which indicate great debility, gene- 
ral weakness, or want of vitality; and, therefore, by 



108 

infusing into the patient a greater amount of this vi- 
vifying principle, accompanied by strict observance 
of a proper dietetic, calisthenic, and other hygienic 
practice, make restoration for the waste occasioned by 
some violation of the laws of life. The difficulty at 
present, seems to be in the fact, that the electricity is 
no sooner introduced, than it instantly escapes, " as 
quick as lightning,'' and that we have no reliable 
mode of introducing this subtile fluid into the system 
in regularly divided quantities, and retaining it there, 
just as the state of the case requires. But this being 
a medical question, we must avail ourselves of some 
other medium to communicate to the public, a mode 
by which we believe it might be done. 

" And on the seventh day God ended his work which 
he had made ; and he rested on the seventh day, from 
all his work which he had made." 

We frequently hear this last sentence excessively 
ridiculed by those who think themselves " wise above 
that which is written," as though Moses had said, the 
Creator was tired after his great labor of creating a 
paltry world, or rather the garniture of this world ; for 
the earth had been previously created, "in the begin- 
ning." 

We freely admit, that compared with the rest of the 
Creator's works, this Earth and all that is therein, is 
but a small affair. Other planets are far larger, and 
the sun is as large (bulk and density considered,) as 
all of them put together; whilst there is reason to 
believe that some of the stars exceed our sun and all 
his planets with their satellites included ! 



109 

The word rest, in'that connection, conveys the idea 
©f cessation, arising from consummation, not fatigue; 
as though Moses had said, the work being done, God 
then ceased operating, in that way, upon the Earth. 

The text is often best explained by the context, in 
which Moses says, "on the seventh day God ended 
his work which he had made,'' 1 leaving his laws to 
operate for the regulation and government of that part 
of Creation. 

One of our own countrymen, (Noah Webster,) who 
understood the meaning of words as well as any of 
these cavillers, in his dictionary of the English lan- 
guage, defines rest to be, " cessation of motion or action 
of any kind, and applicable to any body or being ; a 
state free from disturbance." 

That is the noun. The verb rest, he says, is, " to 
cease from action or motion of any kind; to stop ; to 
cease from labor, work or performance ; to be undis- 
turbed ; to abide, to remain with." So that, to say 
God rested on the seventh day, is no more derogatory, 
than to say He had finished what he had purposed 
to do. 

Resting, refraining, or abstaining for a day, is not 
ceasing for ever; accordingly we find He has been at 
work since, creating and destroyingi,worlds, [as we un- 
derstand the terms,] for it is well known to astrono- 
mers, that there have been stars, which are not now to 
be seen ; they have been demolished or removed : there 
is no doubt but that one of them was broken or de- 
stroyed, for we have seen the pieces, called asteroids, 



110 

some of whioh are angular and fragmentary and not 
round and whole : no doubt many worlds have been 
destroyed since ours was created, whilst others have 
been created in the mean time. It has become so 
common of late years to discover new planets that it 
scarcely excites any astonishment : whether these have 
been newly created, or only newly discovered, it is not 
very easy to determine, but judging by mundane cir- 
cumstances, we incline to the view, that at least some 
of them are new. 

Why should other worlds be stationary, whilst all 
on this Earth is in a state of mutation ? It caunot be ! 

Neither does the destruction of worlds " imply de- 
fect in their formation, or mistake in their Maker," 
any more than does the death of animals and plants ; 
on the contrary, it is evidence of wisdom, benevolence 
and power, in the Almighty. Nor does it evince 
" cruelty towards his creatures." Death itself is not 
a curse, but a blessing; it is the cause or means of 
more life and more animal enjoyment, ten thousand 
fold, than if it had never been instituted ; but we will 
not detain the reader with the considerations which 
lead to that conclusion. 

In Chapter II., we have spoken of there having been 
no rain nor clouds previous to the Deluge : Moses ex- 
pressly states this to have been the case, prior to the 
creation of man ; " for the Lord God had not caused 
it to rain upon the Earth, and there was not a man to 
till the ground. But there went up a mist from the 
earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." 



Ill 

From that time to the Deluge, rain is not mentioned — - 
probably there was none — for then the earth needed 
drying, not wetting,; nearly the whole surface being 
covered with shallow water, or with wet swampy 
ground. Hence the reason why the rainbow did not 
appear until after the Deluge. 

Also, in Chapter II., we have supposed that the ante- 
diluvian mountains were only twenty-eight feet in 
height ; but as the land sank, the mountains would 
also sink, below the surface of the water ; the ocean 
in many places is more than five miles deep ; so that 
it was capable of containing and covering the moun- 
tains, even had they been " five miles high." 



112 



CHAPTER VIII. 

i 

" Some say that in the origin of things, 
When all creation started into birth, 
The infant elements received a law 
From which they swerve not since ; — that under force 
Of that controling ordinance they move, 
And need not His immediate hand who first 
Prescribed their course, to regulate it now." 

" Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God 
The encumbrance of his own concerns, and spare 
The great artificer of all that moves 
The stress of a continual act, the pain 
Of unremitted vigilance and care, 
As too laborious and severe a task." 

" But how should matter occupy a charge, 
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law 
So vast in its demands, unless impelled 
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force, 
And under pressure of some conscious cause ?" 

The pious Cowper appears not to have been fully 
informed in relation to the whole doctrine of organic 
law, as at present understood ; nevertheless, after fur- 
ther reflection, he triumphantly adds : 

" The Lord of all, himself through all diffused, 
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives ; 
Nature is but a name for an effect 
Whose cause is God. He feeds the sacred fire 
By which the mighty process is maintained ; 
Who sleeps not — is not weary — whose designs 
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts ; 
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts." 



113 

Thus the poet arrives at the same conclusion that 
^ve do; namely, that the power which created, still 
sustains the law ! No one doubts it. 

The perfection of law is, that the "act" provides for 
its own fulfilment. Thus, in passing a law to bor- 
row money, we therein make provision, not only for 
payment of the interest, but also for the repayment of 
principal ; this insures the loan to be taken, and 
thus the object of the law is attained. Whilst all hu- 
man- legislation is imperfect, it is not so with divine 
law. The laws of the Creator compel their own ful- 
filment, "for time and for eternity.'* — Each act of the 
Almighty, invariably accomplishes all the purposes 
for which it was intended — needs no amendment or 
supplement — is final, binding and conclusive. The 
laws of man may be evaded ; those of the Deity must 
be fulfilled, regardless of subterfuge or special plead- 
ing. 

The Almighty Maker is no defective workman. 
The machine which He designs and sets in motion, 
needs not a constant pressure to keep it moving. Hav- 
ing once received the impress of His law, it stops not, 
falters not, nor swerves a hair from the unerring line 
prescribed by Him, whose right it is to rule and reign. 
His law needs no revision, no support; — self-acting, 
by His power who made it such. 

We ascribe to the Creator greater power than those 
do, who contend that matter requires to be impelled 
" by a ceaseless force, and under pressure of some 
conscious cause." 



114 

The works of man require extraneous momentum?, 
or the machinery will stop. The spring, the weight, 
the steam, the wind, the magnet, the animal or other 
power, must be applied, to overcome what is called the 
vis inertia ; though falsely so styled, because, to mat- 
ter, motion is as natural as rest. Gravitation and fric- 
tion constitute the true vis inertia. The mechanism 
of the Creator feels no such drawbacks; nay, they 
tend to compel the enforcement of the law. 

The works of finite beings require constant propul- 
sion. The Deity alone can create perpetual, ever- 
during motion. 

We admire Franklin, Espy, Morse and Fulton r 
(and his friend and teacher Fitch,) but neither they, 
nor any other man or set of men have as yet been able 
to invent a machine which shall make one single re- 
volution by its own propelling power. This would be 
perpetual motion ; but the Almighty has created a 
system so adjusted that, whilst admitting change, 
naught but himself can suspend or even impede its mo- 
tion or progression ! 

What is to be the final result of those frequent 
changes, it is not given to man to know. 

" See dying vegetables, life sustain. 
See life dissolving, vegetate again ; 
Nothing is foreign — parts relate to whole ; 
One all extending, all preserving soul 
Connects each being, greatest with the least ; 
Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast. 
All serv'd, all serving, 'nothing stands alone : 
The chain holds on, and, where it ends, unknown," 



115 

Some have supposed that inasmuch as our sun is 
gradually approaching the milky way, other solar sys- 
tems are also approximating to that high way of the 
Deity, that illuminated celestial pathway, into which 
the host of heaven is thus being marshalled, prepara- 
tory to some still greater display of Almighty power ; 
" when the morning stars will again sing together, and 
all the sons of God shout aloud for joy."* 

Others assert, " what has been may be." If other 
worlds have been destroyed, so may this which we in- 
habit, when it shall have accomplished the object for 
which it was created : 

When the angel which John saw standing upon 
the sea and upon the earth, shall lift his hand to 
heaven, " and sware by him that liveth for ever and 
ever," " that there shall be time no longer :" 

" When the stars of heaven shall fall, even as a fig- 
tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of 
a mighty wind :" 

" When the heaven shall depart as a scroll when it is 
rolled together, and, being on fire, shall be dissolved 
and pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
shall melt with fervent heat ; — the earth also, and the 

* " To suppose that the Almighty filled universal space with light, or its me- 
dium, streaming from worlds innumerable to worlds that cannot be numbered, 
with no eye to receive it but that of the tiny occupants of the little star on 
which we dwell, and which intercepts only an infinitesimal portion of its rays, 
and that he launched these innumerable worlds on their eternal path, in order 
that the descendants of Adam might study their motion, and write books upon 
Astronomy, is an opinion which could only find credence in minds of the most 
limited capacity, and in heart? devoid of sympathy and feeling.'' — Norih Bri- 
tish Review, May, l85i. 



116 

works that are therein, shall be burned up.'' The~ 
suppose that then will 

•• The e: rom her orl 

rianets and suns run law" ugh the ski 

The rul:i from ...... -pheres be hurl'd, 

Being on being wreck" d, and world on world ; 

. : le foundations to their centre nod, 
able tc the xhrone of God! 

As " God never meant that man should scale the 
heavens by strides of human wisdom," we will not 
attempt to pursue this portion of the subject further. 

" Here then we res — 
; to one end, bat 

There is one matter relating to the primeval condi- 
tion, that we have not sufficiently alluded to : — whilst 
the earth was principally a morass occupied by rank 
vegetation and by saurian, and other gross animals, 

" A creature of amphibious nature, 
On land a beast, a fish in water ;"' 

the atmosphere contained a greater proportion of car- 
bonic acid gas, than it does at present : those animals, 
and the rapidly growing vegetables, attaining enor- 
mous sizes, lead us to think so. The inconceivable 
number of shell fish which then, or soon after ap- 
peared, aided by the rank vegetation, abstracted a 
large portion of this carbonic acid from the air and 
water, and prepared the way for the existence of a su- 
perior class of animals. 

Whether man was originally as highly organized 



117 

as at present, we havs no means of knowing — his 
great tenacity of life, the slow development of his 
natural functions, and various other circumstances, 
seem to point the other waj, but we are not as yet 
prepared to affirm or to deny it. 

The doctrine of organic law, of which we have 
spoken, when properly understood, does not derogate 
from, but exalts the attributes of the Creator in every 
well-balanced mind. A carpenter can go into the 
woods, cut down the trees and slowly build a house ; 
but how much greater would he be, if he had power 
to lay down the law that as soon as the sun rises to- 
morrow, there shall arise a house upon every lot in 
the city, completely finished and furnished, without 
the assistance of any man ! 

" Most strength the moving principle requires : 
Active its task — it prompts, impels, inspires." 

Philologists have clearly proven that when Moses 
said day, he meant day— such a day as we now under- 
stand by that term. 

When Moses, in relation to the Creation, spoke of 
a day, he meant twenty-four hours, or one revolution 
of the earth on its axis ; for, as it were with the pur- 
pose of placing that matter beyond doubt, he uses the 
significant expression, " and the evening and the 
morning were the first day," &c. 

If we read 1000 years where Moses speaks of one 
day, then, it was not until two or three thousand 
years after the light was created, that the sun, moon 



118 

and stars were formed. And it must have taken one 
thousand years to separate the waters from the waters ; 
which we have already demonstrated, was probably 
done in a few hours ! Such a theory would only 
mystify the account, and make it more difficult to be 
understood. 

It will not do at this late date, for those who have 
not a colloquial and critical knowledge of the language 
in which he wrote, to say, " Moses sometimes meant 
a day, and sometimes a thousand years," by the same 
word, in the same or a similar connection ; but if the 
word used by Moses has such double meaning, then 
must the signification be determined by the rationale 
of the exegesis. 

The Creator being " perfect in all his ways," hav- 
ing determined upon that which he purposed to ac- 
complish, it is reasonable to suppose he so arranged 
his work, that each department should appear in its 
proper order, time and place. If the doctrine of or- 
ganic law be correct, and we presume but few modern 
philosophers will dispute it, we see no difficulty in 
understanding that, whatever time it might require 
for the incipient life, all would have been so regu- 
lated by the Maker, that the first individuals of each 
class, might have appeared within six successive days ! 
Everybody knows, that the period of gestation varies 
in different species of animals, from a few hours to 
many months, but we only note the date of birth : 
and as Moses was not attempting to write a treatise 
on natural philosophy, astronomy, geology, anatomy, 



physiology, or embryology, we must not expect t<? 
find every thing in his account so minutely described 
as it would be by a modern professor of those 
sciences. 

Moses allows latitude enough to satisfy the de- 
mands of science as to the inception of created be- 
ings and material things, by using the indefinite, but 
significant, expression, " in the beginning;" we there- 
fore conclude, that the six days spoken of in Genesis, 
alludes to the respective periods when each class first 
appeared upon earth in its perfect state ; nor do we see 
anything more incredible in that, than in many well 
attested facts in natural history. If large numbers of 
winged insects, which have been for a long time ma- 
turing in the water, suddenly rise to the surface and 
become tenants of the air, in an hour, can we not 
thereby comprehend how it might be possible and 
even probable that other animals arrived at maturity 
in a day ? 

Nor is it so wonderful as to surpass belief, that one 
class should appear on one day, and another class on 
the next or a subsequent day. 

Some persons have raised objections to the Mosaical 
account of the first days of Creation, because " there 
could have been no evening or morning, neither day 
nor night, before the sun, moon and stars were 
created." 

We have explained (at page 101 ,) how it is probable 
these luminaries were created at or before the Creation 
of this Earth, and (at pages 36 and 37,) why they 



120 

• 

were not, arid could not have been seen from this 
globe, prior to the fourth day, had there been any in- 
habitants here to look upon or be benefited by them, 
which there was not : there was, therefore, no neces- 
sity for the light of the sun, or of the moon, or of the 
stars, so far as this world was concerned ; and the 
light might have been prevented by the thick cloud 
or chaotic mass of undivided waters, from reaching 
the surface of the earth, until about the time it would 
be useful for the stimulation of vegetable or animal 
life. 

There have been some "dark days" on the earth, in 
comparatively modern times, when " candles had to 
be lighted at noon day;" was there no morning nor 
evening on those days ? Shall we deny there being a 
sun, because we do not see it? 

During a portion of every month we do not see the 
moon : shall we therefore deny its existence, or join 
with the Indians in supposing " it has been cut up 
for the purpose of making stars?" 

The celestial bodies not having been visible on earth 
before the " fourth day," is no evidence that they 
were not previously created and prepared for giving 
light (on earth) upon that memorable day. 

From the laws of motion relating to sidereal bo- 
dies, and from the origin of planets, it is evident the 
axial revolution must have commenced at the first for- 
mation of the earth, whether the sun did shine upon 
the surface previously to the fourth day, or whether it 
did not ; the diurnal motion prevailed ab initio; so 



121 

that, to speak of "evening," "morning" and "day," 
without reference to the light of the sun, is not so un- 
philosophical as some may have supposed ; for the 
diurnal or axial motion marked the time then, as cer- 
tainly as it does now. 

The desultory manner in which these essays were 
originally prepared, as explained in the introductory 
pages, will account for the argument in relation to this 
interesting and important portion of our subject, being 
introduced in detached portions, in different chapters. 
To avoid repetition, we must refer the reader to pages 
36, 47, 71, 74, 100, 101, 105, 107, 108, 117 to 121, 
and other parts of this book, wherein he will find pas- 
sages having more or less bearing on the question now 
under examination : some of them refer more parti- 
cularly to other portions of duration, spoken of by 
Moses, but they show that he understood the division 
of time, and therefore when he spoke of a year or a 
day, he meant a year or a day, such as we mean, when 
we use those terms in their common acceptation. 

We know the word " day," is sometimes used to 
express a long, or indefinite period of time, as "in 
our day" — "in the day of the Lord" — " in that day," 
&c. ; in which sense it has, more than once, been 
used in this work; we also know, that ''evening" 
and " morning" are occasionally used in an indefinite 
sense ; but we do not remember ever to have seen all 
of them used in the same sentence, and in reference 
to one certain period of time, unless they were in- 
tended to express one day or one diurnal revolution of 
Q 



122 

the earth, and we do not see how Moses could have 
been " more explicit " when he said, " and the even- 
ing' and the morning were the second day," &c. 

It may be said, the translators misinterpreted the 
words " evening" and " morning," as well as " day," 
and that each were different words, referring to a long 
or indefinite time : in absence of all satisfactory proof, 
it is just as reasonable to suppose that w r e have the 
plain common sense meaning, as that there are three 
other words, which would be likely to be used on that 
occasion, all having a more extensive meaning, which 
could be translated so as to make as good, yet differ- 
ent sense, as "evening," "morning," and "day" now 
do. in our version of the Bible. 

Perhaps we have said enough to satisfy all who are 
willing to be convinced, that, however the fact itself 
may have been in reality, Moses meant to say, and did 
say, that certain parts of the Creation, as described 
by him, took place in six consecutive days (of twenty- 
four hours each:) but inasmuch as 

" A man convinced against his will, 
Is of the same opinion still :" 

it may be necessary to go a little farther, and examine, 
independently of the authority of Moses, what is pro- 
bable and reasonable, in relation to the time occupied 
by those portions of the Creation which Moses says 
were performed in. six days; for it will be recollected 
that he does not say, " the world was made in six 
days," as he has often been erroneously accused of 



123 

saying; but the contrary ; for both the heaven and 
the earth were created "in the beginning." before 
the first of the six days commenced ! 

Let us, therefore, endeavor to ascertain, if possible, 
what would have been the probable means taken for 
creating men and other animals ; sequents as well as 
antecedents being considered. We have seen, that 
the Creator generally, if not invariably, adopts the 
most direct, simple, and efficient mode in accomplish- 
ing his ends : it is an essential attribute of Almighty 
power. 

According to the objector's theory, it either took 
"a thousand years or more" to make a man ;,or, a 
like period to make men, beasts, and creeping things : 
if the former, will he explain which part of the pro- 
cess required that vast number of years? Was it the 
inceptive, corresponding with the embryonic or foetal 
condition ? If so, we need not dispute it, for such a 
view would not be contradictory or inconsistent with, 
although not necessarily a part of, the process alluded 
to by Moses; it is a mere matter of opinion, and we 
do not believe it: but if he shall aver that it was the 
quickening process — the breathing into man the 
breath of life — the perfecting period, then we take 
issue and deny it, as inconsistent with Almighty 
power, and in derogation of the mode by which Om- 
nipotence has been displayed on other occasions : for, 
admitting the organic law, it would be no more diffi- 
cult to produce a million than a single individual, nor 



124 

to accomplish the process in " one day," than in " a 
thousand years !" 

We had intended saying something as to the ante- 
cedents and the consequents, that would attend the 
formation of animals and vegetables, according to the 
slow process; there are thousands of chemical and 
physical objections ; but we will not trouble the reader 
with such unnecessary speculations. After all, does 
it make the matter any plainer, to suppose that trans- 
lators have not rendered those words aright? Will it 
harmonize more with known laws or facts, to read, 
" one thousand years," or any other great length of 
time* where our version reads "day?" Some geolo- 
gists may answer in the affirmative, but such con- 
struction would subject the account to a thousand 
greater difficulties; chemical, physiological, philoso- 
phical, theological, &c: nevertheless, as our object is 
not to assail modern theories, or theorists, but only to 
endeavor to show that the Mosaical account is reason- 
able and probable, perhaps we have said enough to 
explain, that, however long it might have required to 
form the rocks and other inanimate materials of which 
our planet is composed, and whatever time was re- 
quired for the incipient stages of vegetable or animal 
life, there is no real difficulty in understanding how 
the development might have been made in six succes- 
sive days : and with great deference to some learned 
men, who take the opposite side of this question, we 
must frankly say, that in our humble judgment, the 
Mosaical account appears to be the more reasonable 



125 

of the two, as it reconciles many things which other- 
wise would be entirely irreconcileable. 

There are philosophers who think that geological 
facts are in opposition to the Biblical cosmogeny. 

" Some drill and bore 
The solid earth, and from the strata there 
Extract a register, by which we learn, 
That He who made it, and reveal'd its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age." 

The discrepancy is more specious than real : those 
appearances which indicate the great antiquity of our 
globe, do not conflict with the Scriptures, because 
Moses has allowed latitude enough " in the begin- 
ning;" besides, we are not sure that the inferences 
drawn by some geologists from those facts are cor- 
rect: — the chrystalline, vital and other forces, were 
then more energetic and powerful than we find them 
at present; hence we must be careful how w T e judge 
of the transactions of those days, by the weakened or 
partially expended powers by which we are now sur- 
rounded. 

The numerous organic remains found in those an- 
cient rocks, are sometimes thought to indicate that 
this world must have been inhabited long prior to the 
creation of man ; — to our mind, " the footprints of 
Creation," (to borrow a beautiful expression,) point 
the other way. We have seen none which have sa- 
tisfactorily proved a pre-adamite existence, in any 
wise approaching to the dates claimed by some geolo- 
gists ; and it would afford us much pleasure to take 



126 

lip these " evidences" seriatim, and show to the un- 
prejudiced reader, that most of them can be explained 
to be in harmony with, or at least not in contradiction 
to, the Mosaical account ; but it would require more 
space than is contained in the whole of this volume ; 
and therefore, we cannot undertake it at this time : it 
is not to be expected that in this little essay we should 
attempt to answer, much less to refute, the octavos of 
greater men than ourselves ; yet, candor compels us 
to say, we have omitted our interpretation of " the 
book of Geology, " merely because our present w r ork 
is too limited, and not from any fear of finding the 
book of Genesis contradicted by the book of Nature. 
We now leave this subject, important so far as 
it affects the credibility of the Bible, and inter- 
esting in a scientific point of view as it undoubtedly 
is, with the remark, that, as the man of mediocrity 

"Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, 
Nor plagues that haunt the rich niaa's door, 
Embittering all his state" — 

so, in our limited investigations, never having seen 
any good reason for believing that those portions of 
creation described by Moses as occupying only six 
days, required any longer period, we have not doubted 
his account, and therefore may have failed to appre- 
ciate and remove some of the difficulties which have 
straightened other minds. 

The intelligent reader will decide for himself, which 
conclusion is the most rational. 

Some persons have doubted that men lived many 



127 

hundreds of years ; yet even this is not so improbable 
as at first sight might be supposed. 

The race of man was new. The diseases entailed 
upon us at the present time, by the physical and moral 
errors (sins, if you please to call them such,) of our 
progenitors, did not operate upon them. Their simple 
diet, their pastoral lives, their exercise in the open air, 
their ignorance of what are called refinements, the 
conventional etiquette of social life, their want of the 
knowledge of distilled liquors, and, if it would give 
no offence, we might add, of the materia medica of the 
present day — the mildness of their climate, and many 
other circumstances — all had a tendency to prolong 
life. Moreover, longevity appears to have been a part 
of the plan of the Creator for transmitting to succeed- 
ing generations the knowledge of his power at a time 
prior to magnetic telegraphs, steam presses, printing, 
writing or even revelation itself! Had it not been for 
that admirable plan, nearly all who lived previously 
to Moses, must have died in utter ignorance of the 
Creation, as well as of that remarkable display of 
Almighty power, the Deluge, unless the account of 
the Creation had been written by Adam, and that of 
the Flood by Noah, as hereafter more fully explained. 

We have been thus particular in proving by known 
data, that the Mosaic Chronology is true, because we 
have the means thus to verify it by computations 
founded on existing facts ; such as the present ascer- 
tained rate of increase of population, the disintegra- 
tion of rocks, the decrease of water, &c, ; for, it we 



128 

find that a witness tells the truth in relation to those 
points which we have the means of testing, we may 
more readily yield our assent to his testimony in rela- 
tion to those things of which we have no other evi- 
dence : and in addition, we have seen that other parts 
of the Mosaic account are sustained by geological 
facts. 

" There is internal evidence, in the work being con- 
sistent with itself. We defy any sceptic to write a 
work of fiction of the size of the Pentateuch, profess- 
ing to relate unusual events and extraordinary facts, 
giving names, dates, &c, that will be. found thus to 
harmonise in its parts, and not frequently contradict 
itself." 

It will be observed that we have spoken of the Pen- 
tateuch as though it had been written by Moses. We 
are aware that his authorship has been denied ; and 
we freely admit that he could not have written the 
whole of it; for example, that portion which relates 
his own death, and what Joshua and the children of 
Israel did afterwards; nevertheless, it is evident that 
much of those books must have been derived from 
Moses : such as the account of the burning bush, and 
what transpired thereat, when no human being but 
Moses was present. 

The book of Deuteronomy commences thus; — 
1 'These be the words which Moses spake'' not wrote; 
then comes the story of what befell the Israelites on 
their way toward Canaan, as related by Moses to the 
children of Israel in his great speech which occupies 



129 

nearly twenty-six chapters of Deuteronomy : then fol- 
low sundry chapters containing other speeches, the 
song and sayings of Moses, who by Divine command 
wrote the song and the words of the law in a book, 
but not in the book of Deuteronomy ! 

If Moses was not the author, then those portions 
which treat of the Creation and Deluge were written 
by other and probably by older persons than himself — 
by those who had conversed with Noah, Shem, Ham 
or Japhet, or by these last named individuals them- 
selves ! or, so far as relates to the Creation, by Adam, 
or some of those to whom Adam had communicated 
the same. By referring to Genesis it will be found 
there are two accounts of the Creation, which if not 
contradictory, yet vary so far as to show they were 
written by different hands : one of those accounts, 
being as consonant with the moral, as the other is with 
the physical l&w ; the seeming discrepancy affording, 
to the well instructed mind, additional evidence of the 
truth and excellence of the Holy Scriptures, and a 
practical ethical lesson of the highest importance. 

These books, although sometimes written in the 
first person plural, always speak of Moses in the third 
person singular ; for example : " And the Lord spake 
unto Moses," * * * * and " Moses 
commanded us a law — " * * * Who 
did the writer mean by ll us?^ The most cursory 
reader must observe that the writer, whoever he was, 
in speaking of Moses, is not speaking of himself ; and 
therefore, when we speak of Moses as the writer of 

R 



130 

the Pentateuch, we wish to be understood as speak- 
ing" of whosoever was or were the writer or writers 
thereof. 

It is perfectly immaterial who wrote those books — 
the Bible does not say that Moses wrote them. The 
only question worth considering is, whether they are 
true ? We have therefore adopted the popular view 7 , 
and called that portion of the Bible, the Mosaical ac- 
count, because the compilers of those books have de- 
signated them as " the books of Moses ;" that is, the 
books which treat of Moses, and of the times prior, 
during, and immediately subsequent to Moses ; not 
the books written by Moses; — the name thus given 
being as convenient as any other. Remember, that 
the Bible is a compilation of the writings of various 
authors, and not the production of one or two indivi- 
duals ! 

In thus speaking of the Pentateuch, we neither 
affirm nor deny the "inspiration" of Moses, that be- 
ing within the province of the theologian, not the phi- 
losopher. 

In conclusion we repeat, that if this new Theory 
be correct, the Mosaical account is reasonable and pro- 
bable, the usual objections thereto arising from a mis- 
understanding of the text. 

The Earth was formerly surrounded with a lumi- 
nous ring (like Saturn,) composed of water, ice or 
snow, which descended to the Earth at the time of the 
Deluge. And it is among the possible things that 



131 

Saturn's rings may disappear, and cause a Deluge upon 
that planet ! 

M There was light" before the sun, moon or stars 
were visible on earth. 

The antediluvians inhabited a portion of the Earth 
now submerged, and their whole number was in- 
significant when compared with the present popula- 
tion. 

The account of the Creation and Flood, could have 
been transmitted by reliable tradition to Moses. 
That part of the Bible which describes the Creation, 
might have been written by Adam, or by some one 
or more of those to whom he related it. That por 
tion which describes the Flood, could have been, 
and probably was, written by Noah, Shem, Ham or 
Japhet. 

The Creation occupied six days of twenty-four 
hours each. 

There was one, and only one, general Deluge. 

The Ark was large enough to hold all the animals 
alluded to in the Bible account; and the Earth, so far 
from being rendered barren by the Flood, was ferti- 
lised thereby. 

There have been subsequent Creations and Destruc- 
tions of Planets : other great sidereal changes are ap- 
proaching. 

So also have there been postdiluvian Creations and 
Deluges. Another important change is about to take 
place on this Earth ! 



132 

Finally, without relying on inspiration, and without 
denying it, the account contained in the Scriptures of 
truth is probable, rational, and worthy of belief and 
acceptation, 

Quod est Bemonstratum, 



133 



CHAPTER IX. 

Description of the Plates, Diagrams, &c, with Explanatory, Remarks and 
Concluding Observations. 

FRONTISPIECE. 

This plate is intended to convey some idea of the 
appearance of the Earth, during the period between 
the Creation and the Flood, when viewed at a great 
distance. 

Fig. A — Represents the -luminous ring when seen 
edgewise, the spectator being directly in front, and in 
the plane of the equator; in which case the outer 
edge of the ring would be observed, together with the 
greater portion of the sphere. 

Fig. B— Gives the appearance when viewed in a 
straight line with the axis of the Earth, directly op- 
posite to one of the poles, and at right angles with the 
plane of the equator, showing the flat or broad side of 
the luminous ring. 

Fig. C — Is a perspective or oblique view of the 
Earth, surrounded by its luminous ring. 

It was impracticable in a drawing of this size, to 
preserve anything like a proper proportion between the 
diameter of the Earth, and the distance, height, depth 
and thickness of the vaporic ring; therefore, nothing 
of the kind has been attempted. The intelligent 



134 

reader will easily comprehend this, and will make 
allowance accordingly. 

In Chapter II., we have spoken of this ring as being 
narrow; we still incline to that view; nevertheless, it 
might have been a wide band, resembling in shape, the 
tire of a heavy cartwheel, or a section of a hollow 
cylinder or globe : in our present state of knowledge, 
it is impossible to speak with certainty as to that par- 
ticular. So far as the new theory is concerned, it is 
not very material what shape that band or ring pre- 
sented, although from the laws of motion as applied 
to spouting fluids, we believe it must have been as 
described in the text, namely, a narrow belt, (compa- 
ratively speaking, ) encircling the Earth about the equa- 
torial region . 

Plate II. 

Fig, I — Represents the condition of things on this 
Earth on the second day of Creation, immediately 
after the waters had been divided from the waters, and 
the firmament internosed between them ; as described 
in Chapter II. 

" The firmament" includes the space surrounding 
the Earth, now occupied by the present atmosphere, 
(about 45 miles in height,) and also a large part of 
space, called " the heavens;" consequently, we could 
not make the different divisions bear a due proportion 
to each other, without making some parts so small that 
the drawing would have been unintelligible; and, 
therefore, this has not been attempted. For example; 



135 

PLATE II. 
SEPARATION OF THE WATERS, 






/ Jim 







T«E WEAV fi 














Illlf i 

Mm / 

- .Jiff / 



j^gaiisSiUr'^ I^ ailiiUUitiiuUa^-SaSiS^aa**-** 



/ 



Fig. I. 



¥ 



Fig. II. 



137 

the interior of the earth, of which we know but little, 
except that it is a molten mass of excessively heated 
materials, marked in the drawing, (for the sake of bre- 
vity,) with the word Fire, should be much larger, and 
those portions representing the land and water much 
smaller than they appear in the drawing. This is es- 
pecially true in relation to the water. To have that 
delineated in just proportion to the other parts, would 
have rendered it scarcely perceptible in a drawing of 
this size. 

To have enlarged the drawing to the same scale of 
depth or thickness with the water on the surface of 
the globe, as given in this drawing, would have re- 
quired the other parts to be so large that no map — 
much less any book we have ever seen — would con- 
tain it. The exact proportions are unimportant, so far 
as a clear understauding of the matter is concerned. 
Our object being, to convey our meaning to the mind, 
rather than to the eye. "We hope this diagram, imper- 
fect as it is, with the letter press of the chapter re- 
ferred to, will be sufficient for the purpose. 

Fig. II — Is a small apparatus for producing fire by 
the compression of atmospheric air. It consists of a 
metallic cylinder A, closed at one end B, but open at 
the other end. C, is a piston with an air tight flange 
or plunger D, to the underside of which is attached a 
small piece of punk, tinder or other easily ignitable 
substance E ; and on the other end of this piston is 
•a button F. <* . 

To produce fire, the cylinder is held in one hand 



with the. piston extended, as in the drawing ; the but- 
ton is then stricken briskly with the other hand, 
knocking the plunger down to near the bottom of the 
cylinder. It springs back by the elasticity of the en- 
closed air, and is immediately withdrawn from the 
cylinder ; when the punk or tinder will be found %& 
be ignited. 

We must apologise to philosophers (should any such 
read this little work,) for introducing this trifling in* 
strument, as well as for many statements, explanations, 
calculations and remarks, which to them must appear 
trite and tiresome : let them remember, we are not at- 
tempting to teach the learned, but the unlearned. 

Plate III. 

Fig III — Is another u amorphous" drawing, in whicfi 
we have introduced, without regard to regularity, a 
small portion of the suns and systems which coun- 
teract the attraction of our sun upon the Earth ; caus- 
ing the annular motion of our planet. 

The doctrine of repulsion is objectionable ; because 
if the velocity had ever exceeded the centripetal force ; 
(which must have been the case when it ejected a 
planet,) the whole body of the sun would have been 
broken to pieces, (as is sometimes the case with an 
over-driven grindstone,) instead of merely throwing 
off one or tw 7 o portions at long intervals of time. 

Repulsion presupposes the centrifugal, to be neces- 
sary to restrain the centripetal force; or in other 
words, that the Creator did not succeed in correctly 



139 



Sum of the Attraction t^_ 



Sunt and 



of tht other 
Systems, 



i i i 



5 

55 






\ I 



' i 



^ 



u 


*d 




tr* 


e 


> 


B 


h3 


fe- 


H 


S 1 


8—1 


^s 


P 


^ 




S£ 




r» 




^ 





| I © 



JU/r< 



I 



o/ ihrSun. 



141 

balancing these two great forces, and thai, as in the 
case of some contending political powers, if either 
should prevail, " we the people," nrust suffer. If the 
centrifugal force should prove the stronger, there 
would be a universal scattering — a flying to pieces ; 
or, if the centripetal should prevail, there would be a 
mighty consolidation, equally destructive to the pre- 
sent order of things. 

Attraction belongs to every "celestial material body, 
(of which our Earth is one,) in proportion to bulk, 
density, distance, &c, which law counteracts or pre- 
vents any mischief from this tremendous power, with- 
out any necessity for repulsion, and thus keeps things 
jor the present, in statu quo : that it may not always 
do so, is more than probable, for reasons which would 
be given, were we examining "the law of progress;" 
but not wishing to extend these remarks, we must pass 
over this (to us) highly interesting portion of our 
subject. 

Had the original projectile force been sufficient to 
eject a large planet from the sun, it would have torn 
the sun to pieces : for, we do not believe that such a 
partial centrifugal force would operate on one section 
only, without pervading the whole mass. 

If the velocity of a rotary body becomes so great, as 
to destroy the attraction of gravitation and of cohesion, 
that instant, the binding oord is loosed, that body is 
broken, and it flies into pieces ; which pieces, would 
be angular and fragmentary, like some of the asteroid b, 
which are evidently the remains of. a planet where 
something of this kind has already taken place. 



142 

Some of those who advocate contraction, coagula- 
tion, induration, or attraction, assert that the sun has 
been stripped of an outer coat, as a shellbark or hic- 
kory-nut casteth its rind or outer covering, allowing 
the nucleus or remaining portion to retain its shape, 
solidity, or fluidity, as the case may be. 

In the diagram, we have represented stellar attrac- 
tion as concentring to a point; which point is always 
in the centre of the attraction of the suns and systems 
that are within sufficient distance to possess any influ- 
ence. Here our drawing is entirely at fault; for we 
could not show the other suns or systems without such 
distortion, as to size and distance, as would lead to 
confusion rather than perspicuity : the reader will 
please locate them mentally, far beyond the picture. 
We have done the best we could for him, whilst treat- 
ing, in our small way, of such magnificent distances. 

Plate IV. 

Fig. IV — Is an attempt to explain by a different 
diagram, the mode in which the Earth is caused to 
revolve annually around the sun by means of the sun's 
attraction, on the one side, and the surr? of the attrac- 
tion of all the other suns and systems within disturb- 
ing distance, on the other. % 

Admitting that the sun, stars, planets and satellites, 
have each a power of attraction, called " the attrac- 
tion of gravitation," there must be a point between 
them where that attraction is equal : distance, bulk, 
density, velocity, &c, will determine that point: — it 



¥ 



# 



& 



143 
ATTRACTION.- - -REPULSION. 



:>> 



* 



* 



# 



■& 



V 



^ 



3k- 



* 






* 



* 



* 



*fc 












\ 



b 



EARTHS 



ORBIT 



/ 



N X 



•** 



^o* 



or trc 



*«<> .«" 



x 



/ 



Fig. IV. 



,---'iia«lttFOOMt>>': rRorut, 



mn 



<Q 

PLANET 



Fig, V. 
PLATE IV, 



[ SUN J 



145 

is not necessary that an enormous sun should be placed 
there, to indicate the spot, or for any other purpose. 

By referring to the diagram, and considering the 
Earth's orbit as there laid down, to represent the line 
of neutralization, or the line along which attraction in 
all directions is equal, we can readily understand why 
the earth continues to revolve around the sun, while 
prevented from falling into that luminary by the stellar 
attraction, and in like manner prevented from joining 
the stars by the solar attraction. There it stays and 
must stay, until by the operation of the fundamental 
law alluded to in the preceding pages, or by " the law 
of progress," (as yet not well understood, but which 
evidently governs the physical, and probably the moral 
and spiritual world also,) the time shall arrive, when 
the great, and as to sublunary affairs, the final change, 
will take place.* 

Fig. V — Shows the mode in which some philoso- 
phers believe the planets were ejected or thrown off 
from the sun. 

This doctrine of ejection of planets, requires the 
projective or centrifugal force to counteract or over- 
power the centripetal or gravitating force; which 
seems to imply, that the Creator could not make a law 
which would accomplish just so much as he desired 

* u If the universe were at rest, the location of equal attraction between any 
two bodies or systems would be a point ; but, as all worlds and systems are in 
motion, it must vary from time to time with the relative positions of the differ- 
ent bodies composing the universe, and the law governing these changes of 
position, will determine the orbit in which any one body will be drawn »lon£ 
Vty the common attraction of all of thorn." 
T 



146 

and no more ; but that he found it necessary to mak« 
one law to restrain another; the neutralizing force 
being lost or wasted. This might do for finite man, 
but is inconsistent with the attributes of Omnipo- 
tence. 

In conclusion, we infer from the preceding data, that 
the present state of things on this Earth cannot con- 
tinue much longer ; a change must come : — it will not 
wait : — in the counsels of the Deity it has been deter- 
mined, though the time when has not yet been made 
known to man. Just as each individual knows he 
must certainly die, but is ignorant of the exact time 
and place when his death will occur, so we feel confi- 
dent that the Earth is not eternal ; — that as it had a 
beginning, so it must have an end. And that end may 
be nearer than some philosophers are willing to 
admit ! 

If Sir Isaac Newton was correct in believing that 
the planets are worlds subject to the same laws which 
prevail here, they, and all other sidereal material bodies 
will have to submit in their turn to a like doom — to 
be replaced by other and better worlds, bv "new 
heavens and a new Earth, wherein dwelleth right- 
eousness. " 

The Power which enacted the law that binds the 
Universe together into one harmonious whole, (cosmo- 
logically considered,) has also made the same or other 
laws, for the destruction of each component part, when 
it shall have accomplished the purpose for which it was 
created. These laws are now operating and must be 



147 

fulfilled. We do not know, and therefore cannot tall 
the date, but come it will ! Other and better Worlds 
will be created, and a still further display made (per- 
haps* to superior beings,) of the power, wisdom and 
goodness of the Almighty—" the Alpha and Omega — 
the beginning and the end,"— to whom belongeth all 
glory and honor, might, majesty and dominion, — now 
and for ever. 



THE END. 



ADDENDUM. 

BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY, 

According to the Hebrew text— from Adam to the death of 

Moses. 



o o 

_ ^ 

•5.2 
P-1 


a 

oa 

s 


d 
o 


O 

w 
130 


u 

•& o3 

1 ^ 




Died 
Anno Mundi. 


Remarks. 


An. Mi. 




800 


930 


930 


Lived until 1 26 y rs of JN oah. 


130 




105 


807 


912 


1042 


" 14 do. 


235 




90 


815 


905 


1140 


Lived until Noah was 84. 


325 


Cainan, . . . 


70 


840 


910 


1235 


" " 179. 


395 


Mahalaleel,. 


65 


830 


895 


1290 


« " 234. 


460 


Jared, 


162 


800 


962 


1422 


" " 366. 


622 


Enoch, .... 


65 


300 


365 


987 


57 yrs after death'of Adam. 


687 


Methuselah, 


187 


782 


969 


1656 


The year of the flood. 


874 


Lamech,. . . 


182 


595 


777 


1651 


5 years before the flood. 


1056 




502 


448 


950 


2006 350 years after the flood. 


1558 




100 


500 


600 


215S 


152 years after Noah. 


1658 


Arphaxad,.. 


35 


403 


438 


2096 


62 years before Shem, 


1693 




30 


403 


433 


2126 


32 do. 


1723 


Eber, 


34 


430 


464 


2187 


29 years after Shem. 


1757 


Peleg, 


30 


209 


239 


1996 


162 before Shem. 


1787 


Rea, 


32 


207 


239 


2026 


132 do. 


1819 




30 


200 


230 


2049 


109 do. 


1849 


Nahor, .... 


29 


119 


148 


1997 


161 do. 


1878 


Terah, 


70 


135 


205 


2083 


75 do. 


1948 




100 


75 


175 


2123 


35 do. 


2048 




60 


120 


180 


2228 


Was 110 when Shem died* 


2108 




93 


54 


147 


2255 


50 do. 


2201 


Joseph,. . . . 


. . 


.... 


110 


2311 


Was 54 when Jacob died. 


2590 


Moses, 










In 2630 fled from Egypt. 
2670 Exodus of theJcwu. 




u 












11 






120 


2710 


Moses died, and Jews enter- 
ed the promised land. 



Adam was created before the birth of Jesus Christ, 4004 

The flood was in the year of the World, 1656 before Christ, 2348 

Serug* was born, A.M. 1819 " 2185 

Abram,...". • .. "...1948 " 2056 

Jews entered Egypt, ". ..2240 " 1764 

Athens founded by Cecrops, "... 2448 " 1 556 

Exodus of the Jews, "...2670 " 1334 

Moaes died, Jews entered Canaan,.". . .2710 " 1194 



* S«rug was the great grandfather of Abram. 



ISO 



REMARKABLE ANTEDILUVIAN EVENTS, 
In the order of time in which they occurred. 



An. Mdi. Patriarch's Names. 



1 

130 
235 
325 
395 
460 
622 

687 

874 
930 
987 
1042 
1140 
1235 
1290 
1422 
1056 

1558 

1651 

1656 



Adam 

Seth 

Enes 

Cainan. . . . 
Mahalaleel. 

Jared 

Enoch 



Methuselah 



Laraech , 

Adam , 

Enoch 

Seth (Adam's son,) 
Enos (grandson,). 

Cainan . . 

Mahalaleel 

Jared 

Noah 



Eemarks. 



Sbem 

Lamech. .. 
Methuselah 



created : lived to see 8 of his generations, 
born : lived to see 7 of his. 

" I these with other of the patriarchs, 
" j lived until after Noah was born. 

"J 

" lived until his grandson Lamech was 

113. 
" " until the year of the flood, 

in the 600th year of Noah. 
" " within 5 years of the flood, 
died 56 years after Lamech was born, 
translated 57 years after death of Adam, 
died 14 years before Noah was born. 
" 84 years after Noah was born. 

179' do. 

" 234 do. 

" 366 do. " 

born whilst six of the above named pa- 
triarchs were living. 
" whilst two of them were and living, 
98 years before the flood, 
died five years before the flood ; his son 
Noah being 595. 
" in the year of the flood, Shem wa* 
then 98 yrs. old. 



Adam lived until Seth was 800, Enos 695, Cainan 605, Mahalaleel 
835, Jared 475, Enoch 323, Methuselah 248, and Lamech 56 years 
of age. So that there was ample time for Adam to communicate 
to them, and they to each other, the wonderful account ef the Crea- 
tien, so far as it was known to Adam by observation, inspiration, or 
revelation. 



151 



REMARKABLE POSTDILUVIAN EVENTS, 
From the Deluge to the time when the Jews entered Egypt 



An. Mdi. 



1658 

1693 

1723 
1757 

1787 

1819 

1849 

1878 

1948 

1997 
1996 
2006 
2026 



Patriarch's 

Names. 



Arphaxad. 
Salah 



Eber. 
Peleg 



2048 Isaac . 
2049|Serug. 
2083Terah. 



Salah 
Shem 



Rea 

Serug 

Nahor 

Terah 

Abram. . . . 

Nahor 

Peleg 

Noah 

Rea 



Arphaxad. . 

Jacob 

Abraham . . 



2096 

2108 
2123 

2126 
2158 

2187 Eber 

2201'Joseph.... 

2218' 



2228 Isaac 

2231 Joseph.... 



2240 



born 



died 



a 

died 
it 



born 
died 



born 

sold 

died 



Remarks. 



died 62 years before his father Shem, and 

when Isaac was 48 years old. 
lived 3 years after death of Abram, and 

until Jacob was 18 years of age. 
lived 1 81 after Noah, and until Jacob was 79. 
d|ed 10 years before Noah, Abraham then 

being 48. 
lived 20 years after Noah, and until Abra- 
ham was 78, 
lived until Abraham was 101, and until 

after Isaac was born, 
grandfather of Abram, (died 9 yrs before 

Noah.) 
father of Abram, died 77 years after Noah, 

75 before Shem. 
whilst two antediluvians, Noah and Shem 
were living ; one being 892, the other 390. 
Noah, Shem and Abram then living. 

do. do. 

when Abram was 58 years of age. 
132 years before Shem, and 20 yrs. after 

Noah, 
was 110 years old when Shem died. 
109 yrs. before Shem, and 43 after Noah. 
Abram's father, died when Abram was 135 

vears old, Isaac then being 35. 
when his father Shem, was 538, and Abra- 
ham 148 years old. 
50 before death of Shem. 
35 do. 3 yrs. before Salah : 64 before 

Eber. 
32 do. 61 before Eber. 
having survived Abraham 35 years : Isaac 

then being 110 and Jacob 50. 
last surviving ancestor of Abraham ; died 

when Isaac was 139 and Jacob79. 
when his grandfather Isaac was 153 years 

old, 
into Egypt ; Isaac then being 170, Jacob 

110 years of ago. 
whilst Joseph was a servant to Potiphar. 
. stood before Pharaoh, and made prime 

minister. 
. The lewi entered Egypt. 



152 

REMARKABLE EVENTS, 

From the time the Jews entered Egypt, until they arriyed at 

the Holy Lanct. 



An. Mdi 



Patriarch s 

Names 



Jacob. . 
Joseph . 
Moses . 



2255 
2311 
2590 
2630 
2670 
27101 Mos 



Remarks. 



died whilst Joseph was prime minister. 

" 56 years after his father, 
born 279 after the death of Joseph. 

. . . fled from Egypt. 
. . . . Exodus of the Jews, 
died 120 years old ; Jews entered promised land. 

MEMORANDUM. 



Noah lived to see his descendants to the tenth generation, inclusive. 

All the patriarchs between Shem and Joseph, were born whilst Shem 
was living ; Jacob (the youngest of them,) being 50 years old when 
Shem died. 

The average term of life of the ten patriarchs from Adam to Noah, 
inclusive, was 857 years; that of the succeeding ten, from Shem to 
Abram, both inclusive, was about 317 years: that of the four patri- 
archs, Isiac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses, was a little over 139. After- 
wards it decreased to " three score years and ten." Since then it 
has been much less; during the last half century, it has been and is 
now slightly on the increase. 

As Adam was the first to live, so was he the first to die a natural 
death : during the first 1000 years of man's existence, we have account 
of two who were murdered, one " translated," and only one who died 
" in the natural way ;" and that was Adam. 

ANTEDILUVIAN C0TEMP0RARIES. 

Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, 
Methuselah and Lamech, were all living at one time, in the 
year of the World, 929 

Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Methuselah and La- 
mech, lived until after the birth of Noah,*in the year 1056 

FOSTBILUVIANS. 

Nahor, Serug, Rea, Peleg, Eber, Salah, Arphaxad, Shem 
and Noah, were living at the birth of Terah, (Abram's 
father,) Anno Mundi, 1878 

All of them were living 70 years thereafter, when Abram 
was born, in the year 1948 

And continued to live for 49 years longer, making 119 
vears ; when Nahor died, in 1997 

Many of the patriarchs were living at various other periods; so 
that the story of the Creation and lJeluge, could have bten trans- 
mitted and corrected, by divers persons, to whom Adam had commu* 
nicated the one, and Noah the other. 



15 



n 



Supplementary Remarks. 



Attraction of gravitation upon objects above the 
surface of the Earth, is always towards that surface, 
and generally in a direction towards the centre of the 
globe ; the variation, as in the case of mountains and 
other large masses of matter, being so slight as scarcely 
necessary to mention in this connection. This ten- 
dency towards the centre has misled some persons to 
suppose that the centre of the earth was the centre of 
terrestrial gravity, and that attraction continued to in- 
crease until we reach the centre. The weight of this 
planet, its disturbing influence and various other phe- 
nomena, lead us to doubt that theory ; among other 
important facts, it has been ascertained, that the law 
of attraction, as applied above the surface of the globe, 
changes, the moment w r e descend below the surface ; 
as explained at page 57, to which the reader will 
please have the kindness to refer, in order to save the 
necessity of repetition : he will there find our reasons 
stated for asserting that, at the centre, the attraction is 
nothing, or for greater perspicuity we should say, is 
imperceptible, being equal in all directions, and that 
outward. 

Consequently, there is a place somewhere between 
the centre and circumference of the earth, where the 
u 



154 

mm is different, that is, where attraction converges? 
or rather dges not diverge ; but the cause is the same, 
although the effects are opposite; namely, equal at- 
traction ; which place, for the sake of brevity, we 
call the neutral point, but which might properly be* 
styled, the line of demarcation, or more strictly speak- 
ing, the spherical boundary of internal attraction^ 
which marks the position where the upward and down- 
ward attraction meet, and bind the world together a& 
by a band of iron, with an interlocking force, which 
none but the Almighty can destroy,. That neutral 
point, for obvious reasons must be much nearer th@ 
upper, than the under surface of the crust of th© 
earth ; which crust itself, is only of small comparative 
depth or thickness. 

This spherical boundary, or maximum of attraction^ 
accounts for the difficulty of sounding the deepest 
part of the ocean; for when the lead reaches thai 
point, it remains at rest r neither tending to move down- 
ward nor upward. 

If the views which we have thus briefly expressedy 
be correct, then il is not necessary that the sea should! 
everywhere have a solid bottom. We see no reason 
why the under surface of the crust of the earth may 
not be part land and part water; for as at present ad- 
vised, there would be no more danger of the water 
" foils ng' y from that internal sea, than there is, of its 
falling from off the exterior part of the earth ; for the 
same power (attraction of gravitation,) which prevents 
it from rising above the outer surface of the globe, will 



155 

prevent its falling below the inner surface or into tb* 
abyss below. 

Should all this be true, then an apparatus might be 
constructed, one part of which could be projected be- 
yond the neutral point, and by its levity rise (or de- 
scend, if you prefer so to express it,) carrying along 
with it the string to which it is attached, until it came 
to the inner surface, and thus we could solve the ap- 
parently solecistical problem of " finding the depth of 
the sea where there is no bottom! 5 ' 

At page 89, we have alluded to the rain which ac- 
companied an earthquake at Cumana, in South Ame- 
rica. Judge Butler, in a letter to a friend, dated April 
15, 1847-, speaking of many severe shocks that occur- 
red in New England, says : " From my own observa- 
tion, I have found that every shock which I Have no- 
ticed, has either been preceeded or succeeded by a 
storm, — generally a storm has followed in proportion to 
the violence of the shock. We have had three or four 
shocks in February, which were followed by rain." 
Professor Espy, in his " Philosophy of Storms," 
speaking of "Meteoric rivers and waterfalls" in- 
forms us, that the water spouts, at Hollidaysburg, 
Pennsylvania, were accompanied by a great rain. 

We admit there have been earthquakes unaccom- 
panied by raiu, and that the connection between the 
phenomena is not very obvious; but we can easily 
comprehend why a rain, such as we have never expe- 
rienced in our day, should have accompanied the con- 
vulsions which look place at the time of the Delude- 



156 

There are many things both in heaven and earth, 
that we have never seen, or if seen, appear very dif- 
ferent from what we know them to exist in nature, and 
entirely contrary to what they would seem to be, when 
viewed from some other point of observation. 

Were the earth seen from the sun, it would appear 
to describe a circle among the stars, from west to east. 
Seen from the moon, it exhibits the same phases that 
the moon does to us ; when the moon is full to us, the 
earth will- be dark to the inhabitants of the moon ; and 
when the moon is dark to us, the earth to them is 
full; appearing to them 13 times larger than the moon 
does to us ! 

As the moon turns on its axis in the. same time that 
it goes round the earth, it always exhibits the same 
side to us ; consequently, we never see the other half 
of the moon's surface, and the earth is never seen by 
those who are on that portion of the moon. So that 
one who dwells on the far side of that satellite might 
say, there is no sach planet as the earth, with as much 
propriety, as those do who say, there was no sun nor 
moon because they were not, and could not have been, 
seen on earth prior to the fourth day mentioned in the 
Bible : nevertheless, should any of these doubting in- 
habitants of the dark side of the moon, visit the side 
nearest the earth, he would behold an orb far more 
splendid than the sun or moon appears to us. 

Those who dwell near the edge of the moon's illu- 
minated disk, will always see the earth near the hori- 
zon; those in or near the centre will always see it 



157 

directly overhead ; those who dwell on the moon's 
south limb, will see it to the northward ; those on the 
north limb wilJ see it to the southward ; those on the 
east limb will see it to the westward ; whilst those on 
the west limb will see it to the eastward. Similar ap- 
pearances of their respective primaries, will be exhi- 
bited to the inhabitants of most, if not all secondary 
planets. 

Suppose the moon to be inhabited, and that a person 
from each quarter, and one from the centre of its illu- 
minated side, should travel to the other side and un- 
dertake to teach astronomy to the benighted inhabit- 
ants, and particularly to describe to them the appear- 
ance and location of that splendid orb the Earth; the 
northern man would tell them it was located in the 
south, the southerner would deny it, and contend it 
was in the north, the eastern man (the lunar Yankee,) 
would declare it was on the west, and the western 
man would assert it to be in the east Here would be 
four contradictory assertions, all of which could not be 
true, whilst the central philosopher would pronounce 
them all false, and aver it was located in the zenith ; 
and yet each of these teachers, could .appeal to the 
traveller's argument, 

** I've seen and sore I ought to know,." 

In order to have a clear appreciation of natural 
phenomena, it is not only necessary to see, but also to 
be in the right position to see correctly ; or else we 
must make due allowance for the false position in 
which we stand. 



158 

Had one of our modern sceptics been upon the earth 
on the second day of Creation, he would not have 
seen either sun, moon or stars ; consequently, he might 
conclude there were none in being, and could very 
plausibly undertake to fortify that opinion by appeal- 
ing to the Bible, (as some do at this day,) to show that 
these luminaries were not created until the fourth 
day : but for reasons heretofore given, we should 
doubt his conclusion, although admitting his state- 
ment; which would amount to this, that they were 
not then to be seen from the earth. 

Mercury and Venus exhibit the same phases to us 
as the moon does, but these changes were not discovered 
by the naked eye, such being among the mysteries re- 
vealed by the telescope. 

On account of the immense distance of Jupiter 
from the sun, observers located there, with our powers 
of vision, could never see Mercury, Venus or the 
Earth, for they are always immersed in the sun's 
rays : would it be wise in them to affirm that those 
planets do not exist? On the other hand, they may 
have advantages attendant upon their position ; for 
we know not how many planets belonging to our sys- 
tem beyond the orbit of Saturn, are distinctly visible 
at Jupiter, which are precluded from us .by the feeble- 
ness of their light; so also, there might be planets 
nearer the sun than Mercury, which we cannot dis- 
cern because they are immersed in the sun's rays; 
shall we hence conclude and assert there are none ? 



159 

By perturbation or the want of it, (or otherwise) w* 
may ascertain whether there are or are not such pla- 
nets, but the mere negative evidence of our not seeing 
them, is by no means of itself sufficient to prove that 
they do not exist. 

That brilliant zone, known as the milky way, which 
appears to us to be a narrow irregular band encircling 
the earth, to an observer placed at right angles to the 
plane thereof, and at a moderate distance therefrom? 
would seem to be an immense field of stars (including 
our sun,) far surpassing in number, brilliancy and 
magnitude any thing observable from the earth; 
whereas, to an observer in the same direction, but at 
a great distance off, this innumerable host of stars, 
would resemble a nebulous cloud; and some philoso- 
pher in that distant position, may be at this moment 
endeavoring to demonstrate that this nebula is only 
11 a fiery haze," or " preparatory matter," out of which, 
at some future time, a world or worlds like his own, 
will be formed : for if the sun which gives light and 
heat to the globe which he inhabits, appears to us a 
mere particle of nebulous light — so may our sun ap- 
pear to him. The earth being at a mean distance of 
ninety-three millions of miles from the sun, when we 
look up into that celestial galaxy and remember that 
the nearest of those stars is two hundred thousand 
times farther from the sun than we are, and that other 
stars may be much farther than that, from thoso which 
are nearest to us, and then consider, that to an ob- 
server placed at a great distance as above intimated, 



160 

they seem to approximate so as to appear as near neigh- 
bors to each other, so much so, as to form an almost 
continuity of light, or Magellenic cloud, we may form 
a faint conception of the immensity of space occupied 
by the " heavenly host :'' and if this does not enlarge 
our ideas of the power, majesty and glory of the 
Creator, we must indeed be dull of comprehension. 
We know of no science, the study of which is better 
calculated to enlarge the mind, and exalt our ideas of 
the Supreme Being, than that which treats of the hea- 
venly bodies; nor will our wonder and adoration be 
diminished when we descend, and by the aid of the 
solar microscope and other appliances, look into the 
minutiaB of things around us not discoverable by the 
naked eye : so that, whichever way we look, we are 
astonished at the wisdom, power and goodness of the 
Almighty. Whoever can suppose all this to be 
" the work of chance, that has always been and will 
always remain," must be of small mental calibre, or 
have an obtuseness of intellect greatly to be pitied, 
and is to be pardoned only upon the principle of na- 
tural obliquity or want of sense : that is upon the plea 
of non-compos-mentis. 

All the primary planets, seen from the sun, always 
appear to move from west to east, which is their direct 
motion. But as seen from any planet, each of them 
except itself, appears to move from west to east part 
of the time, to be stationary part of the time, and to 
move from east to west part of the time, which is 
called their retrograde motion ; consequently, while the 



161 

motion of Venus is direct, stationary or retrograde to 
tis on earth, the motion of the earth will be direct, 
stationary or retrograde, reversely, to the inhabitants 
of Venus; and the same motions which the earth 
exhibits to the inhabitants of Venus, each of the 
exterior planets, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, &c, exhibits 
to us. 

As the apparent magnitude of the other planets 
vary according to their greater or less proximity to 
us, so does the apparent magnitude of the earth vary 
to them. 

None of the sidereal bodies, unless they be in their 
zenith, appear in their true position in the heavens. 
^Refraction and diurnal or horizontal parallax make 
those bodies appear where they are not : refraction 
elevates, parallax depresses them : they are both 
greatest at the horizon, and vanish at the zenith. 

The distance of Mercury from the Sun is to that of 
the Earth nearly as 3 to 8 ; therefore, the degree of 
heat and light at Mercury is to that of the Earth, 
nearly as 64 to 9. Consequently, at Mercury, heat 
and light are about 7 times greater than with us. 
Astronomers assert, " Water would there fly off in 
steam and vapor" 

" In the beginning," that is to say, at the creation 
of "the heaven and the earth," spoken of in Genesis, 
the sun being immensely larger than at present, (oc- 
cupying the whole of the present orbit of Venus,) 
consequently, much nearer the earth than it is now, 
and affording light and heat in proportion to its 
x 



162 

greater proximity, it requires no appeal to arithmetic, 
to show, that the heat on the earth at that time was 
sufficient to cause the water to "fly off in steam and 
vapor," and thus form the vajporic ring around the 
earth of which we have spoken. 

Since the preceding pages were printed, and long 
after most of them were written, a new work has ap- 
peared upon "the Plurality of Worlds," in which 
the learned author asserts, that the rings which sur- 
round Saturn are formed of water ; thus far, corrobo- 
rating our theory. He also goes further, and says, the 
surface of Saturn is covered with water. We assert 
the same to have been the case with the earth, prior 
to the separation of the waters, and soon after that 
separation, the greater part of the earth's surface con- 
tinued covered with water, until the time of the 
Deluge. 

It may therefore be, that Saturn is in a condition 
somewhat analogous to that of the earth prior to the 
Deluge, and that a change of level will some day take 
place upon that planet as it did on this ; and then 
those rings descending, for the reasons stated at page 
35, will deluge that planet, and thereby prepare it to 
sustain millions of sentient beings, resembling in 
their essential nature, the race of mankind. 



Having asserted that " the Almightv never uses 
two means to produce an end when one will answer," 
it may be thought our explanation of the Deluge, con- 



163 

tradicts this assertion, because two means were used 
on that occasion. 

Had there been only one, a change of level for in- 
stance, the parts that sank would have fallen into the 
fiery abyss below, or approached so near it, that they 
would have melted by reason of the excessive heat ; 
and in some of these deep valleys might have col- 
lapsed; the continuity of the solid crust of the earth 
would have been destroyed, the world would then have 
taken fire or have exploded ; the outer crust being 
too thin under such circumstances to resist the action 
of the heated interior gases: whereas, by a simulta- 
neous deposition of the icy cold water from the regions 
of perpetual congelation, the sunken portions were 
kept cool and their solidity preserved ; hence the 
Deluge was a work of preservation, rather than of 
destruction; a seeming evil, but a real good: and is 
another proof that " there was a physical necessity 
for the Deluge." 



R has been suggested, that if " it is to the ignor- 
ance, folly or wickedness of man, that we should as- 
cribe the fearful calamities" which sometimes affect 
mankind, then after the present order of things was 
established, and before man appeared on this Conti- 
nent, it must have rained about once a week — just 
enough to keep vegetation in fine growing order— and 
no more ! That then there could have been no torna- 
does, great storms, tempests or floods, such as we have 



164 

now : no drouths ; no elemental strife ; all must have' 
been peace, security and prosperity; but no sooner 
did man begin to exercise dominion, than destruction 
or devastation followed in his train. And thus it may 
be possible for man so to regulate his affairs, that it will 
rain one day in the week at each place, and no more, 
tv hereby the inhabitants would know what day it 
would rain at their place of abode, or if it did not rain 
on that day, they would know that it certainly would 
not rain (in that place,) until that day week ; aud then 
we should be able to tell before hand, when it would 
rain, or rather when it would not rain, as certainly as 
we now know when the sun will rise to-morrow ! 
Mechanics, farmers and travellers — all whose business 
or pleasure depend upon the state of the weather, 
could then regulate their affairs accordingly. There 
would then be no loss of crops, of ships, or other pro- 
perty from stress of weather. 



In the text, we have alluded to " the change in the 
meaning of words, which occasionally takes place in 
all living languages." A notable instance occurs in 
the correspondence between James II. of England, 
and the great and good "William Penn. 

When King James had taken refuge in France, he 
wrote to Wm. Penn, reminding him of the many fa- 
vors he (the king) had conferred upon Penn, and in- 
viting him to make a proper return or acknowledg- 
ment thereof by coming over to France to see him. 



166 

To this letter, Perm wrote a beautiful reply, acknow- 
ledging his many obligations to King James, but mo- 
destly intimating he might be more serviceable by re- 
maining in England ; and uses this remarkable ex- 
pression : "I will show my resentments by my works." 
Now, the word resentment, at this time, means return- 
ing evil for evil, whereas, it is evident that Penn 
meant, he would return good for good ! 



Opticians have not as yet been able to make a tele- 
scope that will show whether there are inhabitants in 
the moon ; because, by magnifying or expanding the 
surface of the moon, they at the same time, necessa- 
rily thereby expand the light, w T hich, the more it is 
expanded the dimmer it becomes ; so that when a 
high magnifying power is applied, the light upon such 
extended surface will not be sufficient to disclose that 
which would otherwise be seen ; and this, added to 
insufficient altitude and concurrent motion, is one rea- 
son why aeronauts at a high elevation cannot see the 
earth rolling in space as a grand globular celestial 
body ; and partly from this cause, and partly from the 
limit of human vision, some who have ascended to a 
great height, describe it as looking into a vast in- 
verted frustum of a cone, with a dusky bottom, (which 
is a portion of the earth, dimly illuminated with its 
modicum of light.) We are all aware of the domical 
appearance of the heavens, which is well known to be 
the result of this limitation of vision. 



166 

Another difficulty is, the regular motion of the earth 
and tremulous motion of the air ; another is, that 
great expansion renders the lines and angles inde- 
finite, and therefore indistinct, and destroys the 
sharpness of outline necessary to distinct perception; 
these and other impediments, added to the imperfec- 
tion of vision, have thus far baffled the attempts of the 
most skilful : nevertheless, the time mav come when 
the ingenuity of man may overcome all these difficul- 
ties, and thus turn over a new leaf in the book of 
nature. 

We know that daguerreotype likenesses of the moon 
have been taken ; and as daguerreotypes are/izc similies, 
and as we can concentrate any amount of solar or ar- 
tificial light upon the daguerreotype, we might, possibly, 
at some future time, by applying a powerful lens, or 
by an instrument somewhat analogous to a solar mi- 
croscope, and other appliances, be able to see what- 
ever is on the surface of that satellite. 



Whilst the Earth is propelled by stellar and solar 
attraction, with great velocity around the Sun, from 
west to east, the surface of the earth, particularly that 
portion which is nearest to the Sun, is retarded by the 
attraction of the Sun ; the result is. a rotary motion 
of the Earth on its axis, from west to east, known to 
us as its diurnal motion. 



Bee 1 7, ] 



